Uzumaki Taisho
by FullMetalRuromaru
Summary: Naruto is taken from Konoha at a young age after being chased by a mob. He is the first dual jinchuuriki ever to exist, but will he ever return? If he does, what will his fate be? AU, slight NaruHina in later chapters. InuYasha crossover. Discontinued.
1. Beginnings

Uzumaki Taisho

Chapter 1

By FullMetalRuromaru

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the computer. And someday, the world.

-----

October 10, P.K.E. (Post Kyuubi Era) Year 6

The forests of Konohagakure were normally silent, but not today. A mob of villagers, more than a few of them shinobi, were chasing after a small boy under cover of night. Torches filled the air with harsh flickering light; curses and yells to "Kill the demon!" were in large supply. In the shadows, hidden from the light by a huge oak, a tall figure stood, musing over his thoughts.

'There is another of my kind here, in Fire Country? Sarutobi never told me of another youkai. The fact that his soldiers are trying to kill it does not bode well...'

The shadow moved off at top speed to intercept the mob's prey, becoming nothing but a blur.

It found whatever they were chasing a few minutes later. Not far ahead of the mob, there was a brown-haired Chuunin with a scar over his nose, running hard for his life. But it wasn't him that the shadow was focused on: it was a dirty bundle of rags that he held in his arms.

The man ran and ran until, sensing that the mob would not catch up for a few more minutes, he stopped to take a rest. His follower stopped as well.

The shadow stepped out and became a man who looked to be in his late 30s. He was not of this world, to say the least. His bearing was regal, and his golden eyes regarded everything in a cold, detached manner. He wore a red and white haori, with a breastplate and two swords. Only one of his hands was visible.

The Chuunin instantly knew that this man commanded respect. He seemed to wear power like a cloak, easily and well. He was acting as if the other was a bug- able to be squashed without any trouble or qualms- and yet, somehow, he couldn't find any energy to protest.

He bent down to the Chunnin, who was staring at him in both fear and awe, and said, "What is the bundle that you hold in your arms?"

"It's a boy named Uzumaki Naruto," he replied carefully after being glared at for deliberating.

'Clearly a demon vessel,' he thought, irritated. 'Why are there so many human-demon crosses these days? There are quite enough in the world without inventing a new way to make them and mass-producing the stupid things. I thought Sarutobi was beyond the quest for power. Oh, but it was the Fourth who sealed the fox. Well, he certainly didn't choose a very good successor.'

"Give me the boy," he told the brunet bluntly.

"Why?"

"I don't think you understand. It was not a request."

The younger stared into his eyes, then said, "Kami-sama, doesn't look like I have a choice. At least tell the Hokage?"

"I will. What is your name?"

"Iruka. Umino Iruka."

-----

The Third Hokage was just pulling on his Hokage hat when the shadow jumped in through the window. It was on him in an instant.

"Sarutobi," he growled through gritted teeth, "why have you not told me that there was a demon vessel here, why were your soldiers and civilians chasing him, and why the hell were you asleep through most of it?"

"Sesshomaru, please calm down," the Hokage said in alarm. "What do you mean, my soldiers and civilians were chasing a jinchuuriki? My ANBU would have told me-"

The Taiyoukai glared him into silence. "We've been through this before, Sarutobi. You trust people too much. Why would they tell you if they hated the boy? It would be in their best interest to let him die. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that not one single ANBU is in any way watching over that boy at this very moment. They'll all be trying to find him in that godforsaken forest you have out there."

The Third winced. "All right, all right. But you really do need to have a little more faith in people, Sesshomaru. It wouldn't hurt."

"Oh yes, it would," the other said darkly. "Look at what just happened."

"So maybe I trust too much. That's probably why Konoha is one of the strongest villages, because I trust too much. I'm not about to execute anyone because my friend's uncle's cousin's dog's hairdresser's niece said that they were going to let Orochimaru in through the South Gate."

"And with that kind of an attitude, a Gennin could steal that dratted cursed scroll of seals that you won't hide. Getting back on subject," Sesshomaru continued, "I refuse to leave this boy here. It would strangle most of his potential, growing up like that."

The Hokage jumped up to stop him from leaving. "Sesshomaru! You can't do that! He may be the vessel of a demon, but he's a _human_ by birth and right. You know absolutely nothing about taking care of humans. And what'll happen, when he grows old and dies, and you still look like you're 40? It's happened before!"

"And you know absolutely nothing about taking care of demons," Sesshomaru growled at the other man. "What'll happen when he gets older? He'll be destructive, Sarutobi. He won't have any outlet for his youkai, so he'll destroy stuff. Maybe even become a prankster. He'll grow up immature and angry all the time, because of something he couldn't control."

The argument raged on for another half an hour, the subjects ranging from the training grounds in Sesshomaru's city were not adequate for all ninja ("Well, he's not _going_ to be a ninja, he's _going_ to be a youkai") to how Sarutobi "had not taught his students well" ("As if you've ever taught anyone"), as Jiraiya now spent most of his time peeping on women in the bathhouses.

"If I chose to leave now and take him, you would not be strong enough to stop me," Sesshomaru pointed out.

The Hokage glared at him. "But that would be kidnapping. You can't train the child if he doesn't want to be trained!"

"I can try."

Naruto himself yawned and shifted slightly on the chair where Sesshomaru had left him. The shinobi and the demon immediately shut up and looked at the six-year-old rubbing his eyes and yawning.

"Why is Oji-san yelling?" he asked slightly petulantly. "You woked me up!"

"'Woked'?" Sesshomaru asked Sarutobi. "He doesn't even have basic grammar!"

"He's only six," the other protested. "How could he?"

"Ano, ano, Oji-san, who's he?" Naruto asked again.

The taiyoukai knelt on the ground in front of him. "My name is Sesshomaru. I'm from the western lands."

"Sesshomaru-chan looks funny," Naruto laughed.

Sarutobi sweatdropped, then remembered what he had to tell Naruto. "Listen, Naruto. Sesshomaru saw how you just got chased by a mob, and he wants to take you to his home and train you. There's no doubt that you'd be very, very strong under his tutelage. But you wouldn't be able to return to the village for a long time. An extremely long time."

"But I wanna be strong, like Dog-chan!" Naruto protested.

"'Dog-chan'?" Sesshomaru asked Sarutobi dryly.

"One of our top Jounin, Hatake Kakashi, has occasionally watched Naruto while in ANBU uniform. Sometimes Naruto would see him," he explained, then turned back to Naruto. "Are you sure you want to go? You can't go back on your word once you're gone."

"Of course I want to go!" Naruto exclaimed.

Sarutobi sighed heavily. "Fine. Wait a moment and then I'll go with you to get your stuff."

"Ano, Oji-san," Naruto said more seriously, "would I be able to see you or Iruka-sensei at all?"

"No, Naruto," he sighed. "You wouldn't be able to see us at all."

-

-

-

-

-

As the two powerful men watched Naruto pack, Sarutobi turned to Sesshomaru. "Please, Sesshomaru. Promise me three things."

"What?"

"One: that you teach Naruto not only youkai techniques, but shinobi jutsus as well. I'll give you scrolls."

"All right."

"Two: that you give Naruto this when he comes of age." The Hokage held up a battered blue bag that he had carried from his office.

"Fine."

"Three: that you allow Naruto to come back here once he is twelve."

"Absolutely not!"

"Sesshomaru, he is not only a jinchuuriki of two demons, but the last member of that ancient and most secret bloodline. You cannot hold him from his destiny."

He snarled again. "Watch me."

"The village needs him! There isn't a single person in the village who doesn't know his father's name and title, and the Jounin will _fight_ for the honor to train him!"

"That's exactly why I'm taking him away. Until he's powerful enough to defend himself, which won't be for at least another ten years, you can't reveal his heritage, and once you do, the only thing people will see when they look at him is his father's shadow. That's no way for him to grow up."

"But it's here that we have the necessary information to train that bloodline," the Hokage pleaded. "Please, Sesshomaru, let him return."

The Taiyoukai considered it for a minute, then said, "It will be up to him. When he is twelve, only graduate eight gennin. Then, lump them together under three senseis. Bring them to Inuyama for the winter, and let Naruto choose whether he will stay or go."

"Agreed," Sarutobi said and shook hands with his longtime friend.

Naruto finished packing and walked back to them. "Okay, I'm ready."

Sesshomaru sighed, then picked him up and settled him on his back, taking his bag in hand. "Don't let go, now."

Naruto squealed with delight as the demon took off in a rush of air.

"Come back soon, Naruto," Sarutobi whispered to their retreating backs.

-----

September 12, P.K.E. 12

It had been six years now, and the gennin in Naruto's year had reached graduation level. While nearly none of them were mature, eight had been picked to graduate- Aburame Shino, Akimichi Chougi, Haruno Sakura, Hyuuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba, Nara Shikamaru, Uchiha Sasuke, and Yamanaka Ino- and put under three senseis, Hatake Kakashi, Sarutobi Asuma, and Yuuhi Kurenai. They didn't have set teams yet, though it was widely thought that Kakashi would definitely at least take Sasuke and Kiba, as he had techniques in common with both. Kurenai was likely to take either Sakura or Hinata, while Asuma's probable squad- Shikamaru, Ino, and Chougi- had thrown themselves together on the first day of being gennin (their parents had been training them in a group for the past four years).

Sasuke had grown steadily colder over the years, and was clearly traveling fast down the path Itachi had set him on. He closed off everyone and spent nearly all of his free time training.

Sakura was more insecure than she would have been, had Naruto not left. She and Ino were still best friends, and she kept her crush for Sasuke mostly under wraps, as Ino was pursuing him.

Ino, on the other hand, had an unusually bad temper. Without a more confident Sakura to draw off more of her aggression arguing, she needed another source, which took itself out mostly on Shikamaru (for being lazy) and Kiba (for being arrogant and annoying her out of her mind). She did have a crush on Sasuke, but she occasionally dropped subtle hints that he wasn't her main focus. Sasuke was relieved.

Kiba was incredibly arrogant, and didn't get along with Akamaru as well as the others in his clan got along with their dogs. Akamaru himself was more cautious, while Kiba, the dead-last of the class, was the loudest ninja ever to graduate. He still managed to proclaim his superiority somehow, mainly by beating up random Academy Students.

Shino was pretty much the same...

Hinata kept mostly to herself. Shino was nice, as were Shikamaru and Chougi; but being from the lesser ninja clans, her father had forbidden her from associating with them. She didn't have any friends at all, and could barely talk because of her self-confidence issues. Kurenai had been helping her develop genjutsu skills, but it wasn't really her sort of thing (not like she'd ever tell Kurenai that; anyone who saw her as anything other than worthless, she'd be glad to do anything for).

Shikamaru and Chougi were largely unaffected; however, Chougi had a lack of self-confidence (though not as badly as Hinata) and Shikamaru was even lazier. Both of them wondered, from time to time, where that loud blonde kid with the whisker marks had gone. They assumed he had dropped out, but they hadn't seen him around the village.

The Hokage had arranged things with Sesshomaru; as it would be a long winter, they would be going to Inuyama a few days from now. They'd get back sometime in April. He was classifying it as an A-rank mission, due to the long duration and the amount of demons around. Their parents had been notified, and all had agreed (as the Sandaime had told them that its rank was because of its delicate diplomatic status. Upon hearing this, Inuzuka Tsume had flatly stated that Kiba had better stay at home before he offended some foreign Daimyo into starting a war.)

So at last, the time to take Naruto back to where he belonged had almost come. He could tell by the letters that Sesshomaru did not believe he would go; but he thought he could convince the jinchuuriki to come.

Sesshomaru, on the other hand, had told him that they had made a rather startling discovery a few months ago while talking with the Kyuubi inside Naruto's head. It was apparently too delicate to discuss over paper, in case it was intercepted (highly unlikely but still possible). Shippo himself, though, would be coming to escort them to Inuyama, as they had to go through Boar territory- one of the dogs' enemies.

Speak of the devil...

The guard opened the door to let in the young fox-demon. He still looked as if he was an eight-year-old child; but he was at least 350 by now. Fox demons, having a longer life-span than most other kinds of youkai, also matured later, one of the reasons that they were wiped out- they hadn't had enough soldiers to fight back at Naraku when he attacked them.

Shippo, however, would hit his growth-spurts very soon- a quirk of most demons, where they spent about ten or twenty years growing as fast as normal humans- and would then be considered an adult.

For now, though, he looked like an eight year old. He wore his long red hair in a knot at the top of his head. The fox's haori was turquoise blue, as was the crescent moon tattoo on his forehead. He didn't carry a sword yet, since he wasn't old enough.

"Ohayou, Shippo-san," he smiled as he stood. "How's life?"

"It sucks," he groaned. "I _still _haven't hit my growth spurts, so I can't train extensively. But because I'm one of only 3 Taishos, I still have to do a lot of paperwork!"

Sarutobi chuckled slightly. "I know how that feels. At least you have a few weeks off to travel with us."

"That reminds me," Shippo remarked. "Aren't there supposed to be more people coming?"

"They'll be along any minute now."

And true to his words, the Rookie Eight, their three senseis, and Iruka slowly drifted in over the next ten minutes. Finally, Kakashi walked in, tried to avoid a punch from Kurenai for being late, failed miserably, and took a seat. Sarutobi motioned for the guards to close the doors and not let anyone in, then regarded the Gennin, Chuunin, and Jounin gathered in front of him seriously. The ninja, in turn, squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze, until he finally stood and spoke.

"Some of you already know this, but I'll tell you for the benefit of those who don't. Tomorrow, we will be leaving on a seven-month A-class diplomatic mission."

The gennin whispered for a minute before calming down under the Hokage's sharp gaze.

"Some of you are elated at the high-class mission. Others of you are afraid that you'll get killed, so listen to me now. This mission is _diplomatic_. You will be doing little if any fighting. If we get into a skirmish on the way there or back, there is a high possibility that the enemy will be at least Kage level. You are ordered to run away as fast as you can.

"This is Taisho Shippo," he continued, motioning to the fox youkai. "He's a lot older and smarter than he looks, so don't go challenging him to fights. That's the last thing we need, since he's our guide to where we're going.

"The mission parameters are such: we will depart tomorrow at 800 hours from the Northwest gate. It will take us three weeks to get to Inuyama, the capital city of the Western lands. We'll have to pass through enemy territory to get there, so be on guard. Once we arrive, then we will have a very difficult mission to do.

"About six years ago, some of you may remember, there was a small boy in the academy. His name was Uzumaki Naruto, and you all would probably remember him by his blonde hair, blue eyes, dream to be Hokage, and loud prankster attitude.

"Some of you may also remember that he disappeared about six years ago. I don't know what you thought happened to him, but what did happen was horrific.

"On the night of the annual Kyuubi Festival that year, the villagers worked themselves up into a frenzy against the Kyuubi. But without the fox itself, the villagers needed something else, preferably something or someone defenseless.

"Naruto had whisker-like birthmarks, three on each cheek. He was also born the day that the Kyuubi attacked. They decided that he was the Kyuubi's reincarnation, formed a mob, and attacked him. Iruka here tried to help him get away, but he didn't have enough speed or stamina to carry him far enough away. Lucky for them, though, a longtime friend of mine- Taisho Sesshomaru, the lord of the Western lands- was passing. He took Naruto from Iruka and brought him to me. However, not coming from these parts and having no opinions on the Kyuubi whatsoever, Sesshomaru was the perfect person to take care of Naruto. So, for the past 6 years, Sesshomaru has been taking care of Naruto. In fact, he adopted him 4 years ago.

"But to be honest, Naruto is far too useful and has too much potential for Konoha to let go of him completely. I knew this ever since I allowed Sesshomaru to take him. So when we parted, we struck a deal. This year, I purposely only allowed 8 Academy Students to become gennin permanently. We will go up to Inuyama for the next seven months, over the winter. While we're there, you are to do your best to befriend Naruto and convince him to come back here.

"After three months, he will decide whether to stay or to go. If he stays, then we will head back as soon as possible and choose another Academy Student to replace him; if he comes, then he will pick his team, and I will pick the others. We'll stay another four months, then head back here again."

"Hey!" Kiba yelled. "How come this Naruto kid gets to choose his own team?!?"

"To be honest, Kiba," the Hokage said bluntly, "not everyone is happy with their teams. He's more likely to come if he gets along with or likes his teammates."

"I know that, but why do we want him so much?" he complained. "It's like he's some ultra-powerful ninja!"

"That's not far from the truth. Naruto has the most potential I've ever seen in a ninja. Sesshomaru's probably tutored him himself, and he doesn't do anything halfway; add into that Naruto's Kekkei Genkei and his clan techniques, and he will truly be strong," Sarutobi answered.

"Pardon me, Hokage-sama," Kurenai interrupted, "but... 'Kekkei Genkei'? _Plural?_"

"So you picked up on that," he smiled and puffed on his pipe. "Yes, Naruto has plural bloodline limits. Four of them, to be exact."

'Four bloodline limits... that's _insane,_' Sasuke thought. 'Perhaps he would be worth a fight.'

The Hokage sighed and stretched. "Well, don't let me keep you any longer. I expect to see you all tomorrow morning at 8:00 at the Northwest gate. Oh, and Kakashi? Don't be late."

-----

Kakashi was, in fact, early, and the mission started on time. They were all ready, packs and all; and they made good time the first few weeks, going through the forests, across the grasslands (which took the better part of a week, and had even Chougi complaining), and into a mountain range that Sakura was absolutely sure did not show up on any of the standard maps.

Then, the winds started.

From the beginning, they were hard enough to almost knock Sakura or a few other lighter ninjas (read: Ino, Hinata, and Shikamaru) off their feet, and there was one particularly bad day when Akamaru got blown up a tree and they nearly lost him. Kiba only managed to find him through their mental link.

At last, Shippo told them that if the weather didn't clear up the next day, then they'd head back, cause they sure as heck wouldn't be able to get through here. If they tried, then they died. Simple as that.

The next morning was the worst one yet, but soon before noon it cleared up most of the way. Shippo led the way through the passes, running at top speed until they reached the end of the mountain range.

Finally in warmer lands, the Konoha team gave a sigh of relief and started making very good time. However, after a few days, the members of the party became quieter and more aware- almost as if they knew they were being watched by some unseen enemy. Hinata finally got up the confidence to ask what was wrong.

"We're in Boar lands," Shippo said grimly. "The lord here, Osu, doesn't like humans much, or dogs and foxes. He's the newest taiyoukai- slavering for war and power, and completely mad. If he were to catch us- well, let's just say we'd rather he not catch us."

Hinata nodded weakly and spent the rest of the day jumping at shadows.

It took only three more days to get to the wall on the border between the dog and boar lands, but on that morning, Shippo woke them up early, telling them that a boar hunting party had scented them and would catch them if they didn't make it over the border.

Even though he drove them hard, it took the better part of five hours to reach the wall. By that time, a dust cloud was visibly gaining on them. But as the boar party arrived, Shippo jumped up on the wall, did a very strange hopping dance for joy, and beckoned the others up. They took him up on it, and when the demons stopped, the Konoha party had made it to the top.

"You dogs!" the leader, a large man with a piggish face, dressed in tattered samurai armor and brown furs, and armed with a tarnished spear, oinked angrily. "Bringing humans onto your lands again! We'll mention this at the next Council, you can be sure of that!"

"Nyah nyah!" Shippo yelled, turning around and presenting them with a lovely view of his bushy red tail. "Like it'll make any difference. You boars are too new to make any real demands! You're not even one of the original clans, so you don't have kamiatae like the rest of us do, either! The only reason that they even _considered _making that Osu one is because a few of us are extinct!"

The boar growled and turned away. "There'll be blood over this, you hear, Taisho? You always steal our meals!"

"Hmmph, if you tried to eat them, they'd not just stick in your great ugly throats, they'd cut them to boot," the Kitsune laughed at their retreating backs. He jumped down on the other side of the wall. "Shall we continue?"

-----

Three days later, they arrived at a huge mountain, at least three miles high. It was absolutely _covered_ in a city, every single inch, and Sasuke could see tunnels leading inside, so there could be more in there. But despite its relative bigness, the city itself (which was built on terraces carved into the mountainside) had a small population- Konoha had about 40,000 people. This city had to have about 45,000, but in a much larger area.

Shippo saw his puzzled look. "Inuyama, capital of the Taisho lands. Despite the only slightly higher population than your city, ours has to be much bigger, because our race in general is solitary and not used to much contact with others. Too many in too little of a space- what might be considered acceptable for your culture- will provoke fighting. Since all of us are trained in fighting from an early age, that could be disastrous and fatal to the race."

"All of you?" Sasuke asked keenly. 'Wonder what their average soldier is like at fighting...'

The group slowly made their way up the mountain. Most of the people were not in the streets, but those who were had an astonishing array of hair colors, ranging from plain white, brown, yellow, red, black, or another color, to mixed or even spotted or splotched hair. However, the basic shape of their faces was all the same, most of their eyes were amber or black, and they were all tall and pale, with a proud and distant cast. You could tell that, despite the differences in hair color, these people were highly isolated and slightly inbred.

Shippo took them up to the top of the mountain, which, despite its high altitude, was occupied by a lush garden. In the middle of the garden was a door leading into the inside of the mountain. The Konoha group descended into it, though not without some dubious looks, as if questioning whether it would collapse or not.

The walk continued for another three hours, as they traveled through a maze of rock passages. There was very little noise down here, and the passages that they were in had very few inhabitants; there were a number of small summon-like dogs traveling, but they all seemed to have somewhere to go, and none of them were over three feet high at the shoulder. Every so often, they'd pass gigantic tunnels, as tall as two hundred feet high; but nobody was in these, either, and Shippo never turned down any of them.

At last, the group reached the end of a passage. It opened out into a large cavern, with another of the larger tunnels coming out above the smaller one they had been in. The tunnel had apparently run parallel to them for the last half an hour. On the far side of the cavern was a pair of black lacquer double doors, inlaid with gold and silver carvings of dogs. Only the bottoms of the doors were covered, as if they were unfinished.

Shippo laid a clawed hand on the doors, and they swung open as if of their own accord...

-----

A/N: Edit, 10/27/06: Well, that's the first chapter done. I really didn't like how it turned out; mostly, it was just rephrasing it. I did change the relationship between Sarutobi and Sesshomaru; in the original, they were more equals than what I intended, which was more of a 'master-student' relationship, with the difference in age and experience evident. This might have come into play during the later chapters, so it's really a good thing I did this. Sesshomaru was going to need to have the ability to order the Sandaime around in some of the chapters farther on (_really_ far on, mind you; more like twenty or thirty than two or three). Well, I can't wait to get to the other chapters; some of those will require more than just a little changing of the plot. I'll also be changing a few of the review responses, so look out for any of yours.

R & R,

FullMetalRuromaru


	2. New and Old Friends

Uzumaki- Taisho

Chapter 2

By FullMetalRuromaru

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto! NOOOOOOO!!!!

A/N: The ages:

Naruto and the rest of the rookie nine, except Hinata: 13

Sesshomaru: Really old; maybe just over 875? Appears to be 47.

Shippo: appears to be about 10; probably about 350.

Hinata: 12

Others: doesn't matter. XD

Review Responses

**winxclubluver**: I can try, but I doubt I can update faster... (Edit: And now I'm sure I can't.)

**anonomys**: You seem to be in some confusion about what I may be deleting. I was talking about my other story. Also, while Inu Yasha definitely won't be showing up, because I ended up killing him off (but his reincarnation will!), Kagome is going to show up for a while. Miroku will probably be mentioned in passing several times, while Sango will probably not be talked about or shown at all. Again, I can't update very fast, probably. (Edit: Definitely.)

**T.O.B.**- I really appreciate your suggestion, but I've been thinking about this story for about 6 months and I already know what Naruto is going to look like. (Added in at later date) Also, thanks for the suggestion (again) but seriously... I already have the bloodlines figured out! Anyway, I can't use some of those, because 1) they'd make him too powerful; 2) there are a lot more elements than that, and they'd make him even more powerful; and 3) if this is going to be a NaruHina fic, then I can't let Naruto have that bloodline, it'd be far too much like incest.

**Arazashi Hatake**- I really appreciate your support, but... if you mean the storyline... I might not stick to it past the Chunnin exams. (Edit: In fact, I won't.)

**scienceboy**- Thanks, but I decided that I could live without one.

But, you burned me to a crisp with a Katon jutsu for a cliffhanger! In my face!

Wait, what?

**Gaara-kun**- Yaaay! Now I am proud of myself!

**Ckeffer**- This is well written? ... O.o (Edit: O.o)

**Captain50**- Naruto has multiple tails, 3 fox and 1 dog... his ears will actually look like a cross between dog and fox ears. In case you're wondering how it will look, watch the beginning of Inu Yasha the movie 3: Swords of and Honorable Ruler, and look at the back view of Inu Taisho... he has two tails hanging down his back.

**Windsbane**- Yaaay! You think it is original! That rocks! Unfortunately, I am not good at making up new fighting styles... but I do have one idea that I like! However, he will mostly use Sesshomaru's style, with maybe some of Lee's and a few others thrown in...

**inu-kag101**- As above mentioned, Inu Yasha, Kagome, Sango, and Miroku are all dead, but I can say that they loved each other before they died... actually, I probably will.

**writer-of-stuff**- That's two people who think this is well-written! I must be dreaming! (pinches self) Ow! Guess not... don't worry, I'll be bringing Naruto back. Although, Naruto may end up being slightly too powerful... I'll work on it.

**Dragon Man 180**- No, this takes place a few centuries after the human part of the Inu-gang's time... even Inu Yasha is dead! Kilala comes in later. Actually, you'll probably see a Temari vs. Kagura fight sometime during the Chunnin exams. P.S. - Love your fanfiction!

**the Dragonbard**- I've already explained this over e-mail so here's the condensed version for others: very few of the youkai clans will be named after the animal, especially because of the fact that the Boar clan will play a large part later, and I can't call them boar because it translates to Osu-buta, and that will get confusing, seeing as what I've named the lord. Yeah. (Also, in this context, 'Taisho' means 'general'.)

**Kaori**- Yaaay! Thank you, I've decided not to have a beta, but thanks!!! Also, two people have decided that they hate my cliffhangers! That rocks!

I think...

**anime goddes- **'damn me and update soon'?!? Mixed opinions!

**SOENergetic**- Okay, I can't explain it really well, but here goes: Shippo is technically older than Naruto, but because Naruto hasn't absorbed all of Kyuubi and Inu Taisho's power, he isn't a full demon, so he's older physically because he ages faster. (They're about the same age mentally.) Kagome will be included later, and Rin (Inu Yasha Rin, not Kakashi's teammate) will come in, though not as much (her reincarnation, however, will play a slightly more significant role- not major, but more than just a mention). No, Naruto is not able to go to the past.

As for how I thought of this, it's a long story. I'd just finished reading the second-to-last chapter of Akki no Tama's 'Sealed Demon and Half Demon' (there was a long wait between the 18th and 19th chapters) and wanted to do something like it. (I used to have huge problems being original.) I basically rewrote it after I discovered that I didn't like the ending. When I realized that besides having Inu Yasha rescue Naruto was not only unoriginal, it was dumb because it was_ Sesshomaru_ who ended up training him, I rewrote it so that Sesshomaru rescued him, then again so that Inu Yasha and some of the excess things were cut out. (In other words, I did the exact same thing that made me dislike Akki no Tama's fanfic: I killed off InuYasha.) One thing I edited out- after the Chunnin exams, Naruto was going to participate in the taiyoukai exams. From there, I edited Naruto's fights until I came up with this. All in all, the process took just over 7 months: 3 months for the first version, 3 months for various in-between stages, three weeks of typing, and a week of final editing.

**MasterBrattan**: A beta is someone who you give your finished but not edited chapter and they edit it. (At least, that's what I think it is.) Inu Yasha died of old age, but he lived for 500 years, so he had a nice, long life. If you mean Rin, Sesshomaru's ward, then we won't see her much; if you meant Rin, Kakashi's teammate, we will definitely see her!

**Everyone who wants me to update soon**: I'll try, but I can't promise anything. (Edit: The chapters may be slightly faster than last time. I've begun to see a pattern with when I finish my chapters- it's almost always when my internet is down. Well, recently my family _finally_ got a new laptop- the old one, on which I wrote my first fanfictions, is dead and gone- and my dad is trying to fix up the internet so that both computers have it. Wouldn't you just know it, he's completely messed it up. I haven't been on the internet for a day and a half so far, and it'll probably last a pretty long time. Oh, well- more for you. Of course, I can't actually post the chapters until the internet is back up... this is so troublesome...)

**ATTENTION ALL READERS!!!**

The pairings have _finally_ been decided. Sesshomaru/Tsunade won by only a few votes; Kyuubi/Inu Taisho had already been decided; and Naruto/Hinata has shoved all the other pairings out of the way with more than forty votes. The others had an average of ten.

-----

On with it!

-----

Last time:

_Shippo laid a clawed hand on the doors, and they swung open as if of their own accord..._

-----

...to reveal a majestic office. The floors were granite and covered with fine rugs; the walls, wooden and hung with rich tapestries. A row of glass windows lined one of the walls; Sasuke hadn't realized they were so close to the surface. A desk made out of mahogany was set directly in front of it, so as to catch the light well. Two people sat on either side of the desk, doing paperwork.

The other was wearing the same style of clothing as Sesshomaru. However, he did not have a breastplate; his haori was yellow and red instead of white and red; his sash was completely red; he had three tails all hanging down his back, two red and one white; and instead of two swords at his side, he had six, all slung over his back: three peeking out over his right shoulder, and three peeking out over his left shoulder. Three had black sheathes, one had no sheath, one had a red sheath, two had red handles, one had a yellow-and-blue handle, and one had a black handle. The last one was completely shrouded in black cloth so that nobody could see what it looked like. He had hair that was a mixture of red, silver, and blond; two ears that looked like a cross between dog and fox ears, with mixed red and silver fur; and three whisker-scars on each cheek, making him look vulpine in nature. His eyes, while mainly a laughing blue color, also had small flecks of red and yellow mixed in, making them look slightly darker than normal. He sported fangs and claws; while not as long as Sesshomaru's or Shippo's, they were definitely large enough to take a chunk out of anyone he wished to. Most of the ninja correctly assumed that this was Naruto.

Naruto looked up at the sound of the door closing and stood, concealing the fact that he hadn't been doing his paperwork. "Sesshomaru-sama."

"Long time, no see, Sarutobi," Sesshomaru said as he signed a paper and looked up.

"Hello, Sesshomaru," the Sandaime said, then bowed slightly. "May I please present the new generation of Konoha gennin: Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chougi, Yamanaka Ino, Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, and Hyuuga Hinata. Also, their Jounin senseis, Hatake Kakashi, Sarutobi Asuma, and Yuuhi Kurenai. I believe you already know Umino Iruka."

The shinobi bowed to Sesshomaru, and the Taiyoukai inclined his head. "I am Taisho Sesshomaru. This is my adoptive younger brother, Uzumaki-Taisho Naruto; my adoptive nephew, Higurashi-Taisho Shippo, was your guide on the way here."

Shippo gave Kiba a wolf's grin, showing all his teeth, when the Inuzuka looked back at him in surprise. The other boy quickly looked away.

Naruto smiled his fox's grin and bowed. "Nice to meetcha."

-----

Later that day, Iruka heard a knock on the door of the room he'd been assigned. He opened it curiously. It was Naruto.

"Iruka-sensei?" he asked nervously. "Can I come in? I want to ask you something."

The Chuunin teacher looked startled. "Of course. It's your castle, after all. Come on, have a seat."

Naruto smiled a bit as he stepped in and sat down. He fiddled with his fingers a bit, growing even more nervous under Iruka's curious gaze. Finally, he blurted out, "Whydyousavemeithoughtyouhatedmelikeveryonelse?"

Iruka blinked twice. "Wait, what?"

"Why'd you save me? I thought you hated me like everyone else," the jinchuuriki said with obvious relief that his one-time teacher hadn't kicked him out when he tried to ask.

Iruka sat in silence for a moment, then finally replied. "You reminded me of myself, as a student- a troublemaker, the class clown, no parents... mine died in the Kyuubi attack, did you know?"

Naruto bent his head in shame. "It's my fault."

"Nonsense," Iruka said sharply. "That's just as dumb as saying that I was the one to make Orochimaru leave-which I didn't, thank you very much. You are _not _500 feet tall, you do _not_ have nine tails, you have _never_ attacked Konoha- I think-, and you did_ not _kill my parents. As far as I know, you did not drag yourself out of your hospital crib and strangle them with your bare hands. For that matter, the Kyuubi had been attacking for most of two days before you were born, and my parents died on the first day. There's no way you could be at fault."

"But the villagers--"

"To _hell_ with the villagers, Naruto," Iruka practically snarled. "The majority isn't always right, you know!"

"All right, all right," Naruto said, holding his hands up meekly in surrender. "But I'd be scared to be the majority, around you."

Iruka chuckled. "So, got any good ramen places around here?"

At the mention of the magic word, Naruto's eyes were suddenly ablaze with the Flames of Youth...

-----

On his way back from dinner, Naruto met Shikamaru and Chougi walking to their rooms and stopped them for a moment.

"Hey," he said. "Shikamaru and Chougi, right? The lazy one and the boy who wouldn't stop eating?"

Relieved that the other boy wasn't about to call Chougi fat, Shikamaru nodded. "Yeah. And you're the blond that dyed Mizuki-sensei's hair bright pink?"

"Like a Haruno's," Naruto grinned.

Shikamaru made a rare, lazy smile. "It's good to see you again."

"Really?" Naruto said, completely surprised.

Shikamaru nodded. "Life's been boring and even more troublesome since you've left."

Naruto smiled his fox grin and ushered them towards their rooms.

-----

Later that night, Shippo, Sesshomaru, and Naruto were talking in Sesshomaru's office about the Konoha delegation.

"Naruto, I saw you talking to those shinobi," Shippo said darkly. "I can't think very well about them. Their leader told them- in front of me, no less! - that they were to befriend you so that you'd return to Konoha."

"Of course they did," Sesshomaru said, annoyed. "I've been friends with their leader since he was a gennin. He's straightforward and honest, even if he's matured into a true shinobi. That was simply Sarutobi's way of saying that he wasn't going to hide anything. The whole _point _of them coming here is to persuade Naruto to come back. Otherwise, they'd still be at home."

"Even so, you should be careful," Shippo muttered.

Naruto looked him in the eye. "I am, truly," he replied honestly. "But those two were the closest things I had to friends while I was there. Shikamaru's too smart not to know people are being biased, and Chougi's too kind not to treat people equally- until they call him fat, take his snacks, or try and threaten his friends," Naruto allowed.

"I just hope you know what you're doing, if you accept their invitation," Sesshomaru said quietly. "Sarutobi's all right, as you remember, and so is that Iruka person, even if he's too weak to be of much use. But the others... remember, Naruto, I've seen your memories. That Haruno girl treated like dirt- just like the Yamanaka, Inuzuka, and the Uchiha did. Aburame didn't have much to do with you, and the Hyuuga didn't have the backbone to talk to you. That's two out of nine- not exactly the best ratio of friends, especially for you."

"I can win them over," Naruto said earnestly.

"I wasn't finished. Not only will you have to put up with them, but you'll also have to go back to the village and people that tried to kill you. You'll have to do actual, dangerous missions that could probably kill even someone like me."

Naruto ticked his responses off on his fingers. "I'll be able to win them over, I don't care about the people- I could always throw them through a tree- the village is a place, not some monster who's out for my blood, Gennin always start out with D-rank missions, and I won't get into the truly hard ones until high Chuunin or Tokubetsu Jounin."

"I just hope you know what you're getting into, whatever you choose," Shippo muttered.

Neither Naruto or Sesshomaru had the will to disagree.

-----

After Shippo and Naruto had left, Sesshomaru leaned back in his chair and sighed. "I assume you heard all of that?"

"Of course," the Sandaime said as he melted out of the wall. "I learned from the best. So, what is so important about Naruto's seal that you couldn't tell me in writing?"

Sesshomaru beckoned to a seat. "Sit down. You'll need it."

Once the other man was settled and looking at him curiously, he sighed and rubbed his temples with his lone hand, then began.

"About three years ago, we were training Naruto in the art of meditation, as a way to retreat into his mind and ask the Kyuubi for power. Well, he made it, all right- but there's two things nobody knew about the Kyuubi."

After waiting a suitable amount of time, Sandaime growled, "Well, don't keep me waiting- spit it out!"

"All right," Sesshomaru replied. "When he made it in, Naruto found a cage representing the seal. But it didn't have just the Kyuubi in it- it had my father, Inu Taisho, as well. From what we gathered, a dark priestess summoned his soul to the world of the living, and someone with the right knowledge sealed it into the Kyuubi with a berserker seal, then turned it on Konoha. It proceeded to rampage until your successor stopped it, but when the fox was sealed, the seal holding Inu Taisho broke, releasing it into Naruto's seal. That seal, while one of the strongest in existence, was strained under the power of two bijou, leading it to leak out youki. The youki is slowly changing Naruto into a demon, as he absorbs the Kyuubi's and Inu Taisho's demonic chakra- the reason for his rather drastic changes in appearance. He's not quite one-fourth fox-dog demon at this point."

"And if that happened in three years, what will happen in the next three?" the Hokage whispered in wonder.

Sesshomaru sighed again. "There's worse. Who can you think up off of the top of your head that knows berserker seals, has a grudge against Konoha, is powerful enough to seal the soul of a Taiyoukai, and is powerful enough to get close to the Kyuubi without being killed?"

Sarutobi groaned. "Not Orochimaru?"

"The one and only. And you'll never guess who he and the new dark priestess are working for- Naraku. Looks like he's not so dead, after all."

"This day has gotten better and better," Sarutobi muttered, cradling his forehead.

Sesshomaru smirked. "Ah, but you haven't heard the other thing you didn't know about Kyuubi."

"What _now?"_ the other groaned.  
Sesshomaru's smirk had evolved into an unholy grin as he leaned over and whispered something into Sarutobi's ear.

_"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THE KYUUBI'S A GIRL?!?"_

-----

The very next day, Naruto declined offers of friendship from Sakura and Ino, telling them that "it's not happening if you don't mean it". Sakura sighed and walked away; Ino, on the other hand, was much harder to get rid of, having followed him around the castle for a day.

That same day, however, Naruto had accepted an offer of friendship from Aburame Shino. When Shippo asked him why, he said cheerfully, "he wouldn't offer if he didn't mean it, and besides- someone like him probably hasn't got a lot of friends. It would be better for both of us to be close."

Sasuke, Kiba, and Hinata had yet to approach him by the end of the week. Sakura hadn't tried again; Ino had, but had, once again, been turned down.

On the third day, Naruto had been training in one of the large training grounds near his quarters when Sasuke walked in. The fox-boy smiled at the avenger; the other boy 'Hn'-ed and began to walk out of the training ground when Naruto stopped him.

"I'm almost done," Naruto smiled. "Please wait one minute."

Sasuke glared at him, then sat down near the entrance.

"Do you even want to come back to Konoha?" he muttered under his breath.

"I don't know," Naruto answered truthfully, surprising Sasuke. He hadn't thought the double jinchuuriki had heard him. "I've lived here for six years, and I'm accepted here- but Konoha's my home village, and I have, or had, friends there, too. Sure, there weren't many of them, but--"

"But you miss them," Sasuke said quietly.

Naruto looked up in surprise from where he had been gathering up his swords. "Yes, I do."

Sasuke nodded and stood up, brushing off his pants.

"If I may be so bold as to inquire," Naruto ventured tentatively.

Sasuke, curious, looked at Naruto. For a moment, the other boy's eyes were slightly fearful- like he was afraid of not having his question answered. But then it was replaced with pure mischief.

"Where did you get the stick that you've been sitting on so righteously?"

Sasuke stood there, speechless, then let out a squawk of indignation. (A/N: Sasuke squawking... wonder how that would sound...)

"You—!"

Naruto took off around the training ground, howling in laughter, with Sasuke in close pursuit.

-----

Sasuke eventually caught him a few hours later. By that time, he was wheezing with exhaustion, but to his credit, Naruto had barely broken a sweat.

"I naturally have large amounts of stamina," he explained, seeing Sasuke's curious look. "Are you _really _still mad over the 'stick' thing?"

"Not really," Sasuke admitted. "It was actually kind of refreshing, having someone insult me. While we were running, I thought- everyone respects me too much to do that." He grimaced. "Then I realized that all they respected was the Uchiha name, not that there's not much left _to_ respect."

Seeing that Naruto wanted clarification, he looked away and sighed reluctantly. "My brother, Itachi. He slaughtered the entire clan- from my infant cousin Sota to my great-aunt Ryuka. I'm the only one left alive now."

Naruto nodded sympathetically, if such a thing was possible. "I am sorry for your loss."

Sasuke made a face, which Naruto caught. He grimaced. "I suppose you must have heard that a lot."

"Half of them didn't even really mean it," he sighed. "They just wanted to get in on the newest fad- showing sympathy for that Uchiha kid. They didn't even care about how I felt, they cared that the village had just lost 169 valuable shinobi, including most of the police force."  
Naruto raised an eyebrow. "You counted the deaths?"

"243 of them," came the quiet reply. "I wanted to see what I was up against."

"Revenge?" he asked.

He received a nod in return. "That, and reviving my clan."

"Just remember- if you go too far for power, you won't be able to revive the clan," Naruto warned him, getting up and stretching. "Now, I'm hungry. I wonder what's for dinner tonight."

Sasuke stared after him as he left. That was the first time anyone had ever done anything other than encourage him to seek revenge or roll their eyes up to the clouds, as if to say, 'kids will be kids'.

It was actually slightly addictive, he realized. He'd have to come back for more tomorrow.

-----

Sasuke started to be around Naruto more and more. He was the only one who really understood him, having gone through severe opposition and having been treated in a certain way consistently for something he had no control over. True, they had been treated in very different ways- but it was still the same concept. The world would be a better place if opinions were earned instead of preconceived.

One day not long after Naruto and Sasuke had become friends (in a way), Hinata was sitting slumped in the garden at the top of the mountain. She'd wandered around it for a few days, and found a spot she liked- farther back towards the far edge of the garden, with a small waterfall and pond with water lilies growing in it.

Despite the niceness of the spot, and of the day, she found herself growing depressed again. She wouldn't be any help on this mission- she couldn't force herself to be friends with this boy, she just couldn't. She wasn't outgoing enough. It wasn't that she didn't like him- far from it, she thought with a blush- but she didn't have the confidence to approach him.

Suddenly, Hinata was jolted out of her thoughts by the sound of footsteps on the rock behind her. She turned around to see Naruto.

"Hi," he said with a grin as he sat down next to her. "It's really nice here, isn't it?"

She turned and blushed. "H-hai, it i-is."

"Why do you stutter?" he asked her with a frown. "Is it something I said?"

"N-no!" she yelped. "B-but... i-it's just..."

"It's just what?" Naruto repeated.

"I- I'm worthless," she said quietly, bowing her head towards the ground. "I am b-by far t-the worst of t-the Rookie E-Eight. I'm o-only a bit a-above the D-Dead-Last- and t-that's because S-Shikamaru was too l-lazy to even p-pick up the p-pencil on tests. I c-cannot beat anyone, n-not even my s-sister, seven y-years younger than m-me."  
"So?" Naruto asked gently. "Strength is not measured in comparison to others."

"Not by my father's standards," she said miserably.

"Well, screw your father," he said strongly, ignoring her gasp of surprise. "He's not _here_, so lighten up. If anything, you can say you've had a good month."

Hinata bent her head to disguise her blush. "But, Naruto-sama--"

Naruto twitched. "Anything _but_ '-sama', please. That's what some of the stuffier retainers call me."

"N-Naruto-san, then," she said bravely. "My f-father is the h-head of the H-Hyuuga clan. I-if he chooses, h-he can t-throw me out of t-the clan. I c-cannot survive o-on my own y-yet, and s-so I must d-do my best t-to please him."

Naruto refrained from asking her if she'd known how wrong that had sounded, then asked her out loud, "So, once you're old enough to take care of yourself, then what will you do?"

Hinata froze, not having thought that far yet.

"See?" Naruto asked, trying not to be unkind. "You were using it as an excuse. Try and figure out what you _want_ to do with your life, instead of letting others take over for you."

Hinata was about to answer, when suddenly an inhumane screech rang out over the gardens. Naruto had been too busy talking to hear the faint rustle of feathers, as a crow demon nearly thirty feet across had drifted closer and closer on the morning breeze.

The demon saw its target and, evaluating its companion as of no concern, dove down towards the two twelve-year-olds.

Naruto reacted as fast as he could, shoving Hinata to the side and creating two shadow clones. One shadow clone raced for the entrance, trying to bring Sesshomaru as fast as he could; the other created a third. Both of them stayed with Hinata, as Naruto jumped up, nearly sixty feet into the air, to catch the crow demon.

The crow, on the other hand, was too wily to fall into the trap. As Naruto prepared for an assault on a huge demon, he was suddenly faced with the crow-demon's human form- which, as it had not even finished growing, was under five feet tall. As he tried to slice through it with a dagger, which he had pulled from his sleeve, the dagger went right through it.

Falling back to earth, Naruto realized that that crow had only been an illusion. So where was-

He whirled around with a curse as he felt two of his shadow clones disappear into puffs of smoke, hiding where Hinata had been standing mere moments before.

He waited a few seconds for the smoke to dissipate, then when that did not happen, he blew it away with a small Fuuton jutsu. Hinata and the crow-boy, who looked like he was the demonic equivalent of their age, were gone.

Naruto spat out a curse and started running through the treetops after the scent. It trailed through the garden, taking a zigzagging path until it began to near the outer wall. Then the trail ran in a straight line.

Naruto could smell the fear of the crow-boy. He also suddenly noticed that he had unknowingly called up his demons' chakra, enveloping his body in a nimbus of bright red-orange and a sickly green. His eyes had turned bright red with green streaks, and his whisker-marks were more emphasized.

The crow-boy suddenly came into sight. He was carrying Hinata slung across his back; she was, surprisingly, unharmed, though tied and gagged. Naruto snarled and increased his pace. Even with the Kyuubi asleep, her dreams were telling him to kill.

The crow-boy looked back when he reached the wall. Seeing Naruto, he squawked and jumped into the air, pulling large black wings out of his back.

Naruto sheathed his dagger and pulled out one of his swords. It was a standard katana shape, with a black sheathe and a red handle. As he channeled the demons' chakra up it, it was suddenly enveloped in a sickly green glow. Naruto reached out for one of his demons.

'_Ready, Inu Taisho?'_

'_Go.'_

The crow-boy, still carrying Hinata, was circling back over the garden, bound for the lands in that direction.

Naruto jumped far up into the air and hurled the sword at the crow demon. It went straight through where the right wing joined the body, severing it, and then lodged into the left wing.

The crow-boy dropped like a stone. There would be no recovering for him: crow demons had three major arteries in their wings alone.

Naruto ran towards where he had seen the crow-boy fall- one of the garden's many small ponds- as Sesshomaru, Shippo, Sarutobi, and the Jounin burst out of the entrance to the tunnels.

The crow had fallen into the shallows of the pond. Naruto, having lost most of his demonic aura, waded in, prying the tied and gagged Hinata out of its claws. He pulled her to shore, where Sesshomaru took her.

"Go get your sword back," the taiyoukai ordered him crisply. "You used the Chuudokusaiga?"

Naruto nodded wearily as he went to retrieve his sword.

Kakashi pulled out a kunai and sliced Hinata's bonds and gag off. She was sobbing silently, body shaking from the stress.

"She's all right," the silver-haired Jounin said. "He didn't harm her."  
Sesshomaru flexed his claws and, walking over to the corpse, sliced the back of its shirt open.

There, on its back, was a scar in the shape of a spider.

"Naraku," Sesshomaru said with a grimace. "But if he's the one behind this, then he must have a reason."

"A message?" Sarutobi suggested. "To show you he can strike at you even in your own home?"

"No," Sesshomaru said grimly. "It can't be that, because Naraku would have simply killed her. And he can't want her for a hostage, because Konoha and Inuyama law will not allow the exchange of hostages, and her father doesn't care enough about her. No, Naraku wants her alive...

"There's something about that girl that he wants specially..."

-----

A/N: Ah, finally, I'm done. I have been taking my royal time with this chapter, but this time I actually have real excuses (and some that you probably won't accept). I had some relatives in the house for Thanksgiving and I couldn't use the computer. I had plot bunnies for other stories running around in my head. I forgot my password and _still _hasn't emailed it to me, and I asked for it over a week ago. My English teacher went on a rampage and demanded two short stories, one with an original character, and I have had two (school) band concerts recently with a third this coming Thursday. We got a new laptop and my father has completely messed up the internet for the desktop trying to give the laptop wireless internet access. One of my friends has gotten herself addicted to Kingdom Hearts 2, written part of a fanfiction (which I have naturally felt obliged to read, and it's not bad even if she does have an annoying habit of sticking in OCs that sound _remarkably _like herself COUGH self inserts COUGH (and in her KH2 story will sometimes refer to the character as 'I' instead of using the name). Of course, I've never played Kingdom Hearts, and probably never will, so I have absolutely no clue who most of these people are, what any of the concepts are, or what the plot is about. I watched 'Howl's Moving Castle' and couldn't write anything decent for a day afterward. Another friend has an idea for a story but doesn't have an account and wants me to post it on mine, but can't decide on how to begin writing it and keeps tearing it out. And now I've started to come up with non-fanfiction story ideas, which I am having a very hard time with because they won't get out of my head. It seems like my entire life is conspiring against me. And the next weekend I'll be especially busy, because it's my sister's _and_ my birthdays. (That can't be grammatically correct.) By some quirk of fate, my sister was born the day before my fifth birthday, which makes December the first and second a terrible pain.

Back onto story-like topics before the excuses get longer than the story, this chapter has taken such a long time that I ended up putting in a little something not from the original in there just to end my boredom. It wasn't anything spur-of-the-moment, though, and it will fit in quite nicely with the rest of my story. I also got tired of having Naruto fight with daggers (what is he, a walking weaponry?) so I brought his weakest sword in a lot sooner. This one wasn't even supposed to be introduced until the fight with Neji, or somewhere around there. Its name, Chuudokusaiga, means 'poisoning fang'. I really don't like it, but I'm tired right now, and besides- poison doesn't sound very good when it's translated into Japanese.

The whole point of this sword is that it channels Inu Taisho's powers and provides help for Naruto. It really has no other purpose, and I'll probably get rid of it towards the end.

Also, it's becoming clearer and clearer to me how little I know about Inu Yasha fanfiction on I'll say it again: I first read Inu Yasha fanfiction several years ago, on a different site that is now deceased, and the words for most things were very different. I also have a remarkably decreased taste for Inu Yasha- it got repetitive- and have no desire to begin reading it here. Naruto is enough for me. So, if you see anything you don't understand or is different (like 'Taiyoukai' and 'daiyokai', or 'Inu Taisho' or 'Inu no Taisho/Toga'), that's probably why.

This leads into something else. Some of you have probably seen the third Inu Yasha movie, 'Swords of an Honorable Ruler'. In that movie, Inu Taisho had three swords, one each from Heaven, Earth, and Hell. Somehow that twisted around in my mind until every demonic sword could be classified as 'heaven', 'earth', or 'hell'. Heavens help with healing or have effects in those areas; earths have destructive powers lower that those of hells, and you have to have a certain level of power to use them, but do not have bad side effects; and hells have high destructiveness but will try to possess you, temporarily change parts of your body, or otherwise create bad side effects. Naruto has two of each, some more powerful than others. The Chuudokusaiga (the one in this chapter) is earth.

Thank you to all those who have reviewed, especially Dragon Man 180, T.O.B., and Anonymous, who are three of my most faithful reviewers, and also to Infinite Freedom, who has (for some odd reason) begun referring to me using higher-level Japanese honorifics, and likes my story well enough that he says that I don't need to edit it.

As for FantasyFreak4Life, the whole reason why I'm editing this story is because it's not very good; I know that the page breaks are absurd, and they have been fixed; I'm sorry, but Naru/Hina won by a landslide; if you have nothing good to say about my story, then why even bother writing a review; and if you don't like it, then don't read it.

-FullMetalRuromaru

11/24/06


	3. Return to Konoha

Uzumaki- Taisho

Chapter Three

By FullMetalRuromaru

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

A/N: I'm trying to cut back on the stuff at the top (before the story), so I'm not putting in any more old review responses. Sorry- if you need to see what I said in reply, then PM me and I'll dig it up from one of the unedited copies. I'm also making this author note a lot shorter.

Review Responses

**Kirallie: **Don't worry- although Orochimaru may end up being more powerful than in the original Naruto manga/anime, he will not kill Sarutobi.

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On with it!

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Last time:

"_There's something about that girl that he wants specially..."_

-----

But they were not to find it out that day, nor the next, nor the one after that; and Hinata's secret went on, unknown even to herself, until the Chuunin Exams.

After the ordeal was over, Kurenai gathered up the still-weeping Hinata and took her downstairs to the room she'd been assigned. Sesshomaru left the group with a curt nod; Naruto ran after him, demanding, "You're not going to do anything?"

"Will he do anything?" Kakashi asked Sarutobi.

"No," the Hokage sighed. "Naraku has not emerged into open warfare. I was hoping, at least, that there would be peace here. Given the nature of the inhabitants, I suppose that it was a false hope; but one can dream. As if Orochimaru wasn't enough," he muttered.

"Hokage-sama?" Iruka asked cautiously.

"It's nothing," the old man shook his head. _'Nothing... nothing but for the fact that I can feel the largest war this world has ever known approaching... and my death with it...'_

-----

Naruto caught up to Sesshomaru as the Taiyoukai reached his study.

"Hey, Hinata just almost got _kidnapped_!" he snapped. "What are you going to do?"

"_Do_?" Sesshomaru asked crossly. "I can't _do_ anything! Naraku is not in open war, the council cares little for humans, and a single kidnapping is not worth--"

_**"Oh, yes it is,"** _Naruto snarled, demonic aura beginning to spiral around him.

Sesshomaru calmly reached out and slapped him in the face. The shock of being hit so matter-of-factly somewhat quieted Naruto's aura.

"No matter who she is, we cannot go to war so soon over one girl," he told him. "It is far too big a price, whether she is the head of the Hyuuga clan or not."

"But--" Naruto began, then frowned.

"You like her, don't you?" Sesshomaru asked mildly, looking down at the paperwork on his desk.

All he received for an answer was a strangled squawk.

"It's the only thing that might provoke such a reaction, without you hardly knowing her," he mused as he flipped through the papers. "But really, you've got to be careful. Straddle the fence- one step too far into power and you lose your personal life, one step too far into your personal life and you lose power."

Naruto managed, after a few more strangled noises, to gasp out, "I don't like her!"

Sesshomaru nodded sagely. "Step one is coming out of denial, Naruto."

His ward emitted two more strangled noises, to stomp out of the room, completely exasperated.

Sesshomaru leaned back in his chair, and admitted to himself, "I've been waiting all week to do that."

-----

By the time Naruto reached his rooms, he was in a towering rage- not because of what Sesshomaru had said (although that was irritating), but because he knew that it had been his fault that Hinata had been kidnapped. He went to his room, but there were two maids there, cleaning and gossiping about the attack. They yelped as he walked in, apologized, and went to walk out, but he shook his head and left.

All over the city, people were talking about the attempted abduction, because Naraku had not only dared to try it within the capital of the Taisho lands, he had dared to try to kidnap a girl openly under Sesshomaru's protection- and one from Konoha, whose shinobi were regarded as 'not so weak' by most of Inuyama. At last, needled by all the talk, Naruto returned to his room, took out his rapier, and stalked off to the practice grounds.

He began to do katas over and over again with this one sword. His muscles burned as he tried to wield the unfamiliar weapon, which Sesshomaru had started him off on. Since it was so much lighter, he had to compensate for the difference from his kenkiba.

Finally, he began to hit the practice dummy more and more accurately. Where before he had laid several shallow cuts into nonfatal areas, he now set several deep ones on the throat, stomach, face, and one long slash down the dummy's chest. At last, when his hands were aching and red, he turned around sharply, stalked several paces away, then turned back around suddenly and hurled the rapier end-over-end.

The sword slashed through the air towards the practice dummy and impaled it through where the eye would have been on a person.

"I'm impressed," a voice said from behind him.

Naruto walked back to the practice dummy and pulled out the blade. "I'm glad you think so." He turned back around to see who it was.

Kakashi gave him his upturned-eye smile. "You must have been very good at that when you were little."

The dual jinchuuriki gave him an emotionless look, square in the eye.

The elite Jounin sighed and leaned back on the fence. "It's about the kidnapping, isn't it? Anyone can tell, from your face."

"It's none of your business," Naruto growled at him.

"You know better than that," Kakashi told him agreeably. "I know this, at least- you're powerful enough that Sarutobi wants you, and he wants you bad. If you're that good, and you keep going on like this, then you won't be of any use, and you won't join. And there's something else, too: Uchiha Sasuke is now loyal enough to follow you wherever you may go. His bloodline, at least, is too powerful for the village to lose. Kami-sama knows how you got through to that boy, but you did. I _hate_ to think of what might have happened if he hadn't been assigned to here."

"That's cold," Naruto said emotionlessly.

Kakashi smiled at him again. "I know that. But that's how it is. So what's eating you?"

Naruto began to clean his weapon as he thought. Finally, he answered, "I've been trained all my life to be a powerful fighter, observant in every way so that I know what's coming. And yet- this afternoon I was talking to Hinata-san, and I didn't see, smell, or hear anything that might have warned me. I should have been able to tell that the crow-boy was there!"

"And you didn't," Kakashi said quietly.

"I didn't!" he yelled frustratedly. "And look what happened! Was all my training for _nothing?!?_"

"No," the silver-haired Jounin told him. "If _all _your training had been for nothing, then the crow-boy would have gotten away with Hinata, and she'd be dead or a hostage now. You were good enough to kill the abductor before he could escape, and that's what counts."

"But I didn't prevent it!" Naruto protested.

"That's true," Kakashi agreed. "And you'll have to work on it. But I'd be more worried about the fact that, for the past ten minutes, you've been polishing your sword so that it's been cutting into your hand, and you have now bled all over the polishing cloth."

Naruto looked down and swore.

"Kuso!"

-----

Hinata was fine the next day, so there was no harm done. But nonetheless, Naruto was working harder than ever on his training, especially on multi-tasking and talking while fighting or doing something else.

The routine went on for several days, with Naruto working himself nearly to exhaustion, then spending time with Sasuke, Hinata, and Shikamaru and Chougi. The latter two, surprisingly, had sought him out not long after the kidnapping, and when Shikamaru found out that he was an expert at Shougi, and Chougi saw that he knew all the good places to eat in town... well. A new friendship was born.

The routine, however, did not last long without interruption.

"Hey, Uzumaki-Taisho!"

Naruto looked up to see Kiba grinning nastily at him. Akamaru slunk, whimpering, behind a rock several feet away.

"Fight me!"

-----

Muttering, the five friends made their way to one of the practice courts.

"Why does he want to do this, anyway?" Shikamaru grumbled. "The clouds were much nicer in that other spot..."

"Oh, I have an idea," Sasuke said, smirking as he gave Hinata a glance out of the corner of his eye. He wouldn't say it in their presence, of course, but Hinata obviously liked Naruto, and maybe Naruto liked Hinata... so of course Kiba saw this too, and he liked Hinata himself, so he decided to fight Naruto... it seemed likely.

Of course, if he said it in public...

Sasuke shivered at the images of impending doom (and his body lying dead on the floor), and focused on the fight that was about to start.

Naruto and Kiba were stretching and limbering up as Shippo took it upon himself to be the referee. The little fox-boy hopped up onto a post at the edge of the training grounds, set there for just that purpose.

"Rules!" he yelled. "The fight ends when one person is unable to continue or admits defeat. There is to be no killing or permanently harming. The fighters may aim for any area save for that between the legs. Other than that, anything goes."

"Sounds good to me," Kiba said arrogantly.

Naruto merely stared at him in general dislike.

Shippo held up his hand, then brought it down. As soon as it fell back to its original position, the two combatants leaped at each other. Exchanging a flurry of blows, they fell back to the ground.

Kiba crouched down on all fours, surrounding himself with chakra and calling out the name of his technique. "Shikyaku no Jutsu!"

Naruto pointed the fingers on both hands towards the Inuzuka. Each one was tipped with a fearsome claw, sharpened to perfection.

Kiba moved first, attempting to slam into Naruto and knock him into the wall. But Naruto dodged, swiping his right hand at the other boy and yelling his technique.

"Sankontessō!"

Kiba was suddenly very surprised. You would be, too, if your coat was suddenly rent in five slashes going right down your chest, and if you were bleeding some from those same slashes.

Naruto, on the other hand, was not surprised in the slightest, and this gave him an advantage.

Kiba was quickly kicked up into the air. Naruto leapt up after him, kicking him in the stomach and landing punches to his arm. At last, he kicked Kiba up under the chin one more time, sending him up into the air. Naruto jumped still higher, tucking himself into a ball and...

"STOP THIS IMMEDIATELY!!!" Sesshomaru yelled, nostrils flaring. He was standing on the side of the practice courts, bone white even through the flush of anger. "Naruto! Come down from there! Inuzuka, untangle yourself and go back to your rooms! Shame upon you, you could have killed each other!"

Naruto stiffly landed and, straightening, stalked over to the side. Kiba, on the other hand, fell to the ground in a heap. The dog-boy pulled himself up and stumbled off the court. He gave Naruto a glare, saying that this would be continued later, then brashly stomped up to Sesshomaru.

"Why'd you stop us?" he sneered. "I could've beaten him easy. You're only a daimyo; you know nothing of battle and who can beat who, only of banquets and entertaining. You'll never have to fight anyone--"

Kiba was suddenly pinned to the wall by Sesshomaru. Nobody had even seen him move.

"I've fought before, and I will again," Sesshomaru hissed in his ear. "I've won my post fighting, and I've lost much to keep it. Here's a tip; don't offend those of higher status than yourself unless you are a great deal stronger than them and whatever demons they may conjure up. I assure you, I am far stronger than you, and the demons I have would gulp you down in less than a second, and think nothing of it. I could kill you now, if you wished."

Kiba gasped for air, calling for Akamaru in a squeak.

The dog crept under a bench, whimpering.

"He will not come," Sesshomaru whispered, slightly calmer. "He, at least, knows his superiors, and who he can and cannot go up against. Puppies are often too reckless to know when to be quiet and back down; but as they go, yours is quite a good one, and will become a good fighter with age."

Sesshomaru finally dropped Kiba to the ground and, turning to walk away, tossed his parting comment over his shoulder.

"If only his master was a bit smarter."

Enraged, Kiba jumped up and grabbed for a kunai, but felt himself dumped back on the ground.

"Would you rather that I killed you now?" asked a demonic voice in his ear.

As Kiba stared into bright red eyes, his blood ran cold.

At last Sesshomaru managed to get a hold on his demons. He pried his hand off of Kiba's shoulder and walked tiredly away, holding onto his stump of an arm.

Naruto watched him soberly.

He hadn't done that for a long time.

-----

Sarutobi found Sesshomaru in his study later that day.

"You gave Kiba quite a fright earlier, you know," the Sandaime said conversationally.

"Good," Sesshomaru growled, signing a paper with slightly more force than necessary. (The pen went right through the paper.) "He needs one, before he offends someone more powerful than he is and gets himself executed."

"You sound very touchy," Sarutobi noted.

"Touchy isn't the word for it," Sesshomaru snarled, giving up on signing and clenching his hand around the pen. "That idiot didn't even know how close he was to dying!"

"They only know you as a daimyo," Sarutobi told him. "Most daimyo don't do anything active at all."

Sesshomaru's pen finally snapped. With a curse, he picked up a cloth and started wiping the ink off of his desk. "First of all, I am _not _a daimyo. I am a taiyoukai. There is a large difference. Second of all, even if I was, just look at me. I am quite fit, thank you very much, and some little boy- who, I might add, would not even be permitted to tie his own shoes, were he living here- tells me that I 'know nothing but that of banquets and entertaining' and that 'I'll never have to battle someone'. What does he think I lost my arm to, leprosy?!?"

"You do look awfully blotchy."

"Ah, shut up," he snapped, hurling an ink-soaked cloth at the Sandaime's head.

"All joking aside," Sarutobi said seriously, "Kiba does need a serious attitude change, I'll acknowledge that. But if you had killed him, there would have been tremendous repercussions."

"I _know_ that!" Sesshomaru snarled. "But _you_ know very well that youkai can't speak for themselves when they're under a rage!"

The Sandaime shrugged. "It doesn't matter, anyway. You didn't kill anything, Kiba and Naruto are both safe... I think that we came out with a decent result."

"And if it should happen again?" Sesshomaru asked him evenly.

Sarutobi met his eyes. "Then it simply cannot happen again."

-----

About a week later, Sasuke and Naruto were talking after a spar.  
"So, do you know if you're coming back to Konoha or not?" Sasuke asked curiously. "I mean, you'll have to tell us all soon, so..."

"I don't know," Naruto sighed. "Sesshomaru-sama doesn't want me to go; he doesn't think that they'll treat me right there."

"That makes sense," Sasuke mused. "Shinobi villages don't treat anyone right."

"He also doesn't want me to get killed on a mission that's too hard for me- says that even people like him get killed on those missions."

Sasuke looked up from where he'd been staring at the ground. "That reminds me- exactly what kind of person is he? We all know he's not normal, not after he got Kiba like that. And people keep dropping hints, even if only by accident."

Naruto, in contrast, looked down, guilty. "Gomen- I can't tell you."

Sasuke shrugged. He supposed that he should be more irritated, but he just couldn't. "Will you ever be able to tell anyone?"

"Maybe someday," came the truthful answer.

"All right, someday it is," Sasuke said lazily. "So are you coming back to Konoha or not?"

"I might, but even if I do, I have no clue who my teammates should be," Naruto admitted. "Maybe Hinata-- what's wrong with you?"

Sasuke had been taking a drink of water, but had choked as soon as he heard those words. Naruto pounded him on the back until he recovered.

"I'm sorry, please continue," the Uchiha survivor gasped, eyes watering.

Naruto gave him another strange look, then went on. "I'm not really sure about who else to choose. It seems a little weird, though, that I'm the one doing the choosing. I thought that the Hokage picked the teams."

"He said that he wanted you to be comfortable with your teammates," Sasuke explained. "If you were put on a team with, say, Kiba and Sakura, you would be far less likely to go than if it was Shino and Hinata."

"True," acknowledged Naruto. "Well, nothing else to say on that. I'm hungry, let's go see what we're having for lunch today."

-----

A few weeks after that, Naruto came down to breakfast one morning to find the Konoha delegation, Sesshomaru, and Shippo all sitting in the banquet hall. He looked at them a bit strangely. "What is it?"

Sarutobi stood up with a smile. "You only have a week left before you have to tell us whether you're staying or going. Please remember to think it over."

Naruto nodded silently, grabbed some breakfast, then retreated to a secluded corner of the garden to eat and think in solitude.

He didn't come back for lunch, or for dinner. When he didn't turn up at breakfast the next day, Sarutobi asked Sesshomaru if he wasn't a bit worried.

The Taiyoukai shrugged, taking a sip of his tea. "Naruto can take care of himself. He's probably holed up in some corner of the city- he knows how to get food for himself, and to come back here in time to give you his answer."

Sarutobi was forced to live with that, but still harbored his doubts. What if Naruto simply stayed in the city until it was time for them to leave? He might- there were probably people willing to hide him, and he could definitely take care of himself. The incident with the Crow-Boy had shown that. So why would he go to a shinobi village, when he had all he wanted right here?

But the seventh day came, and Naruto finally turned up in his bed, dirty and bruised. He walked down the stairs the next day, having taken a bath, walked into the banquet hall, and tucked into his breakfast.

After he was done, he leaned back into his chair and looked at the Sandaime. "You want my answer, then?"

The old man nodded, looking as if he didn't care but still feeling impatient. "Will you stay here, or will you come with us?"

Naruto paused, then declared, "I'll go."

The Sandaime let out a sigh of relief. "And your teammates?"

"Hinata and... Sasuke," Naruto said, making a quick decision.

Hinata smiled shyly, and Sasuke grinned. Ino and Sakura groaned simultaneously. They'd wanted Sasuke on their team, darn it!

-----

Training quickly started. Hinata, Sasuke, and Naruto had been placed under Hatake Kakashi, who, while the strongest of the three Jounin, was late to training every day. However, it was well worth it- after making them spar together to determine their strengths (Naruto was apparently much better than Sasuke and Hinata, who were somewhat evenly matched) the Jounin started teaching them whatever techniques he thought would fit well with their fighting styles- water for Hinata, fire for Sasuke, and absolutely anything for Naruto.

Naruto felt a little like he'd just stepped into a whirlwind. "Everything's always so much slower and calmer here," he confided in Sesshomaru. "I think it's because we live for all these centuries, so we take more time to do things. Normal humans rush because they have only fifty or sixty years to live. But shinobi... they're lucky to live until they're thirty, aren't they? So since they have so much less time but so many more things to do, they rush as fast as they can."

Kakashi had ordered Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata to wear weights, in the form of heavy bands of metal around their arms and legs. Naruto's already weighed over 150 pounds; Sasuke's were 90 pounds, and Hinata's 65. None of them could walk at all normally for a week, but as soon as they felt strong enough to try jogging a little, Kakashi had added another ten pounds each.

Hinata and Sasuke were also trying to find a specialty. Naruto had already told Kakashi that, with his four bloodline limits, he had quite enough to deal with, thank you very much, and why try to specialize when he had them, anyway? Sasuke was leaning toward Uchiha techniques (fire ninjutsu and Sharingan use, though he hadn't activated it yet), but wasn't about to decide now and thought that maybe he shouldn't pick that- he still had to get stronger than his brother, and that was what his brother used, so shouldn't he use the exact opposite? Hinata had absolutely no clue, but had an aptitude for Suiton jutsus, so she'd definitely be learning a lot of those.

Things started happening more and more quickly as they began to get more into training, and it came as a complete surprise to Hinata when she turned thirteen in December, and as an even greater shock for everyone to realize that the snow was melting and the leaves were coming out again. Soon it was April, and time to go back to Konoha.

As they departed from the entrance of Inuyama, Naruto blinked confusedly at Sesshomaru and Shippo. "I thought you two were staying behind?"

"Well, I have business there, and I need to start training him," Sesshomaru explained. "Plus, you'll need a guide back to Konoha."

Naruto shrugged and turned back to Hinata and Sasuke, starting an argument with the Uchiha survivor.

-----

It took them three weeks to get back to the village, arriving just as April passed into May. Their entrance was mostly inconspicuous- very few of the villagers recognized Naruto, seeing as he was supposed to be dead, and Sesshomaru simply looked like a very eccentric aristocrat with odd cheek tattoos. Shippo did earn a few glares from his fox tail, but after a while he got tired of it and used an illusion to make himself seem mostly normal.

The group went their separate ways once they were inside the village walls, Sesshomaru, Shippo, and Naruto going to a house that Sesshomaru had bought for his infrequent stays in the hidden village, Sarutobi heading back to the Hokage tower (after all, he did have a lot of paperwork to do), and the other shinobi heading back to their homes (but only after the Jounin had reminded their students to meet their teams the next day).

-----

It took only two weeks of D-rank missions to crack Naruto, Sasuke, and Kiba, who all one day (while getting their missions at the same time) had demanded in unison, without meaning to, something better to do.

"Oh, all right, I suppose I can give you an escort mission," the Hokage laughed to Kiba's team. "You will be escorting a bridge builder named Tazuna back to Wave Country. Meet him at the main gate in one hour." He turned to Team Seven. "Sorry, but that was the only C-rank. I'll give you another one once they get back."

However, when Shino came to tell Naruto and Sasuke about the "mission from hell", it put them off of the notion of a C-rank immediately. It seemed that the old bridge builder had been lying when he said it was a C-Rank; an A-rank was more like it. A crime lord named Gatou had taken over the economy of the Wave Country, strangling any growth and sending the entire region into poverty. Tazuna, the bridge-builder, had been building a bridge, the last hope of the citizens, and was therefore Gatou's enemy. The crime lord had hired yakuza, samurai, and even four mist missing-nin to stop him. Sasuke's team had had no trouble with the first two missing-nin, who were Chuunin-level (they fought them on the journey to Wave Country), but had then run into Momochi Zabuza and his assistant, Haku. Everything had gone downhill from there, with Kurenai running out of chakra, Kiba using his Juujin Bunshin with Akamaru and almost getting himself and his dog killed, Shino finally managing to kill Haku from chakra exhaustion, and Kiba and Akamaru (after they'd woken up) beating up and getting beat up by over 50 bandits. And on top of that, their client was an arrogant drunk. All in all, not one of the best missions. There was only one good thing to come out of it: the fact that a gennin team had been able to complete an A-class mission without lasting harm, which would bring more customers to Konoha.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata threw themselves into training, not wanting to have a similar mission due to inexperience.

Not long after that, Shippo interrupted Naruto's training. He was trailing three (human) children who looked about the same age as he was (of course, none of them were over 250 years old)- a girl who was constantly blushing, a boy with a runny nose, and a boy with brown hair and an overlong scarf (Naruto could swear he'd seen that face somewhere before- it looked really familiar).

"Hey, Naruto!" Shippo grinned. "Can you play ninja with us?"

Naruto looked up from pummeling a training log in surprise. "Uh... sure, why not? Who are your friends?"

"These are Moegi, Udon, and Konohamaru," Shippo replied with a cheeky grin. "Come on!"

The four children (and one shinobi) took off running, with Konohamaru in the lead and Naruto trailing behind the group. As the four kids rounded the corner, Naruto fell back slightly, but as he heard a smack and then a yelp, he increased speed again. Coming around the bend, an arrogant voice stated, "That hurt, you brat."

There, in the middle of the street, stood two sand-nin. One, a blonde girl, had a large fan slung across her back; the other, a face paint-wearing boy, carried what looked like a mummy with an afro. The boy picked Konohamaru up by his scarf and shirt.

"Konohamaru!" Moegi yelped.

Naruto walked forward until he was standing just behind Shippo- about eight feet away from the Sand-nin.

"Please put him down."

"You're starting to annoy me," the suna-nin stated. "Bad enough that you're a short little kid... you're disrespecting your elders! You make me want to kill him! 'Please put him down'- you're a stupid little scaredy-cat, aren't you?!?"

"I will not be responsible for this..." the blonde girl said nervously, glancing over her shoulder.

"I don't believe you understood," Naruto said coldly, starting to unconsciously emit killer intent. "It was not a request."

"One which I don't intend to honor," he smirked, drawing a kunai and laying it to Konohamaru's neck.

The suna-nin suddenly found himself ten feet behind where he had previously been standing, lying on the ground. Half a second after he realized that, his stomach and back started aching sharply.

Naruto was standing where the other boy previously had been. He glared down at him with slitted red-amber eyes.

The sand-nin stood up murderously and pulled a bandaged bundle off of his back. "Think you're smart, do you?"

"Tell me you're not planning to use the crow!" the blonde girl said anxiously.

"Stop, Kankuro."

Despite the briefness and quietness of the command, the boy in question suddenly grew pale under his face-paint.

A red-haired sand-nin with a tattoo saying 'love' on his head had appeared, hanging upside-down from a tree. He glared at Kankuro with insanity-filled turquoise eyes that were rimmed with black face-paint. "You're a disgrace to our entire village."

"G-Gaara..." Kankuro stuttered.

"It annoys me that you'd lose control in a quarrel with children! Have you forgotten why we came here?" Gaara demanded.

"But Gaara, they started it! The little one slammed into me!" he protested.

"Shut up... or I'll kill you," Gaara stated, as calmly as if he had been talking about the weather.

Naruto quickly calmed himself down. This was not his territory, and he was only here for a while, but he would still have to keep all his wits about him if he was dealing with a bloodthirsty sand-tanuki.

"You're right, Gaara... I was out of line," Kankuro said, clearly afraid.

The blonde girl spoke again. "We're really, really sorry!"

Gaara stared a moment longer, then turned his gaze to Naruto. "Sorry about my... friends." Disappearing, then reappearing next to his two teammates in a whirl of sand, he continued, "I know we're a little early, but we didn't come here to play around."

"I swear it won't happen again," Kankuro vowed.

"You're here for the Chuunin exam?" Naruto asked in a slightly hostile manner. Sesshomaru had told him that he would probably be entering it.

"...Yes," Gaara said, looking back at him. "Your name?"

"Uzumaki-Taisho Naruto," the dual jinchuuriki said. "And yours?"

"Sabaku no Gaara," he said after a pause. "Kankuro, Temari. Let's go."

Naruto smirked and turned to leave. 'This Chuunin exam will be very interesting... Gaara of the Desert.'

-----

A/N: I was trying to aim this for Christmas, but I still had a decent amount to type on Christmas Eve and couldn't get on the next day. The day after that, we went on vacation, and this is the first chance I've had to get on today. Now my troublesome siblings have been using the computer a lot, and I've mostly been trying out my new computer games. _And _our internet connection is down. Why does that always happen?

I'm trying to decide how complicated I should keep this story. Please let me know what you think on that. Should Sasuke have special powers? Kakashi won't, but Hinata and Naruto will.

This one is shorter than the last one- sorry. I was going to make it longer, but the opposite ended up happening.

We're _finally _to the Chuunin exams. Although the original part of the plot won't start developing until after that, it's still nice to be able to write some battle scenes. Much better than this endless editing. I swear I only added in the crow-boy incident because this whole business was boring me out of my mind.

Yours truly,

-FullMetalRuromaru


	4. Dog against Dog

Uzumaki-Taisho

Chapter Four

By FullMetalRuromaru

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

-----

The Konoha teams were starting to muster. All over the city, anxious teams were starting to assemble, waiting to know whether or not their senseis would nominate them. Tensions were running high and foreign ninja were starting to arrive. Yes, the Chuunin Exams were here again.

Team Seven was no different. Sasuke, Hinata, and Naruto met at the usual place, the red bridge on the outskirts of town. Kakashi did not turn up for another two hours, but this time Naruto was much calmer than the others.

"Why aren't you irritated that Kakashi-sensei isn't showing up?" Sasuke asked Naruto irritatedly. "It's been an hour and a half already."

"Sesshomaru warned me," Naruto explained. "The meeting for nominations to the Chuunin exams is today. It should be ending right about now- all Jounin with students are required to attend. Kakashi-sensei should show up in about fifteen minutes."

It turned out to be a half an hour before his appearance, but it was worth it- for there in his hand were the three applications. Naruto, in his exuberance, actually glomped Kakashi before he realized what he was doing and let go with a blush.

The elite Jounin smiled underneath his mask. "Good thing nobody else saw that, hmm?"

Naruto had the grace to look away and blush as Kakashi handed out the papers. "These are Chuunin exam forms. Whoever wants to go, sign them and report to room 301 tomorrow at noon. Obviously you need to pass them to gain rank, so there's a lot of people there- foreign shinobi and suchlike. You don't have to take them now- you can enter again in six months."

Naruto, Hinata, and Sasuke each took one. Sasuke immediately started for home, smirking and thinking about the training he'd do in preparation. Naruto headed for the house he was staying in, wanting to talk a bit with Sesshomaru before he decided anything. Kakashi teleported away in a puff of smoke.

Hinata stayed there, looking down at her application and frowning...

-----

The next day, all three members of Team 7 met in front of the Academy. It looked as if Hinata had spent a sleepless night, but Sasuke and Naruto were both completely fine. After exchanging the accustomed greetings, Sasuke looked at Naruto questioningly. "So why do you look so different today?"

It was true. For some reason, Naruto had changed his appearance a great deal. His tails hung limply down his back, as if they were not alive or did not belong to him. For once, he was wearing kunai and shuriken holsters- and not just one, either. He had attached a kunai holster on both legs, then two shuriken holsters on his arms. Adding in the six swords on his back, he looked like a walking armory. He was wearing black gloves (not the sleeveless ninja variety, they covered his fingertips), and he'd covered his ears with his hair so that they weren't visible. Of course, now it looked like he had two lumps on his head.

"My appearance," explained Naruto, "reveals my skills too easily. There are going to be a lot of foreign ninja here, and I can't let any of them see Taisho techniques and body modifications."

Sasuke nodded. That made sense. He wasn't going to walk into a room with his Sharingan spinning. The less others knew about him, the better. Of course, it would be the best if they completely underestimated him, so perhaps Naruto should halve left off the six swords he was still wearing.

Hinata shifted slightly, getting nervous. Weren't they going to be late if they didn't hurry up?

Naruto picked up on it and grinned at her. "We probably should get going, hmm, Sasuke? Hinata?"

With their answering nods, Team 7 headed inside the Academy, to the Chuunin exam: an event that could be their making- or their doom.

-----

They met Kakashi outside of room 301, having bypassed the crowd of people on the second floor by judicious use of the stairs. He smiled, eye curving up, when he saw then. "So all of you came. I was wondering about that."

"W-what do y-you m-mean, Kakashi-s-sensei?" Hinata asked nervously. Her stutter was coming back, worse than before.

"Well," he smiled underneath the mask, "if only one or two of you had come, then I would have turned them back. You see, the Chuunin exam can only be taken by groups of three."

Hinata's mouth fell open. Sasuke, being too proud, did not show as much surprise; but Naruto had grinned back at Kakashi as soon as Hinata asked that question. "So you didn't tell us that, because at a word, Hinata would have participated just to let us go."

Kakashi nodded happily. "I'll admit, I'm surprised you've all made it this far. Most people were firmly against the rookies participating- this is the first time in about five or six years. That ruse on the second floor was a trick by two chuunin- it wasn't scheduled and was meant to deter the rookies. But by the looks of it, Kiba broke it up."

Naruto groaned. Why did Kiba have to be so stupid? The less people there were to compete, the better.

Kakashi smiled at him, sensing what he was thinking. "However, it also looks like one of the genin got quite angry with him after that. He has several large bruises on his face."

Naruto and Sasuke both snickered. Hinata was mortified. 'Poor Kiba-kun…'

Kakashi smiled again (does this man ever stop? Sasuke wondered) and stepped aside, leaving the door clear. "Well, you can all pass. Go on. I'll see you later."

With that, he took out his Icha Icha Paradise, buried his nose in it, and vanished in a puff of smoke.

-----

Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata walked into the room to find over 150 genin sitting at various desks, most of them glaring at each other. Hinata immediately froze. She'd known this was an international event, but she hadn't thought there would be this many! The killing intent in the room was almost tangible.

Naruto looked back from where he and Sasuke had walked forward. "Hinata-chan, are you okay?"

Hinata immediately forgot the killing intent and blushed red as a tomato. 'Chan! He called me chan!'

Having some idea of her thoughts, Sasuke sweatdropped. Naruto, on the other hand, was now standing next to her, feeling her forehead. "Are you sure you don't have a fever? Maybe we shouldn't be here, this could be a bad idea."

This, however, only made Hinata blush harder. She was soon saved, though, by Kiba (who did indeed have several nasty-looking fresh bruises on his face) walking up and snidely exchanging comments with Naruto.

"So, we're all here," he said rudely. "How… surprising."

Naruto saw Team 10 behind him, drifting over while managing to look completely uninterested. "Yes, it is surprising," he replied in the politest tone he could manage. "Tell me, Kiba- who did your clan bribe to get you in?"

Kiba turned bright red and started forward. "You--" he snarled at Naruto.

Naruto turned away from him to face a Konoha genin with a spiky gray ponytail and glasses. "What do _you_ want?"

"Easy," the genin smiled, holding up his hands in surrender. "I just wanted to give you some help, you being rookies and all."

"Sorry to tell you this," Naruto said coldly, "but we don't need it. Good day."

He beckoned to Sasuke and Hinata, and the three of them went off to find seats. Shikamaru, Ino, and Chougi also drifted off.

When he looked back, Shino and Sakura were hanging back while Kiba eagerly pumped the silver-haired genin for information.

-----

The first exam was one of the easiest he'd ever had. The point was to cheat off of one of two planted chuunin, who already had all of the answers. Of course, they hadn't told them that; but it was easy to realize all the same- there wasn't the right number of genin, and the chuunin never stopped writing until they were done with the exam.

The methods of cheating, though, had been painfully obvious. Both Hinata and another Hyuuga had used their Byakugan to see through a person and other obstacles to their answers. Sasuke had used his Sharingan to copy a person's movements. Ino had 'fallen asleep', but it was clear she was using her bloodline limit to possess someone- Sakura, it seemed, as only a few seconds later she had picked up her now-finished paper and looked over her answers as if seeing them for the first time. Twice, a bee had hovered at Naruto's paper, then flew back to Shino.

If they ever became true, experienced Shinobi, things like that would be found out at once.

-----

The next exam was slightly harder, and took place at Training Ground No. 44- which, as the proctor happily informed them, was widely known as the Forest of Death. Naruto could see why- the place was full of old, dark, twisted trees, dead plants, and loud rustling sounds. There must be some demons in there _somewhere_. The proctor had definitely mentioned them.

That was another thing- the proctor. Mitarashi Anko was a female Tokubetsu Jounin, whose only pieces of clothing besides grayish-white shin plates and a long white overcoat were netting. She had purple hair spiked up in the back and creepy pupil-less yellow-brown eyes- all in all, a psychotic shinobi. She was, perhaps, like the fabled 'Green Beast' that Naruto had heard of- taking Jounin syndrome far too far. She was also extremely bloodthirsty, as proved when she had cut Kiba on the cheek for mocking her- then licking off the blood.

But as soon as she gave the order, Team 7 darted off into the forest, eager to gain an Earth scroll and complete the task.

-----

They did not get far before they found another team, but this one was not one they wished to face.

"Hand over your scroll!" Kiba demanded.

"I'm not sure that's very ethical, Kiba," Sakura said nervously, eyeing Naruto's swords with caution. "They are, after all, Konoha shinobi like us."

Shino nodded in silent agreement. Although he would not enjoy facing Naruto in the future stages of the exams if they had to do any one-on-one fighting, it would not do to be the cause for one of his friends dropping out of the exams this early.

Kiba only snorted at their suggestions. "Hmmph, we can take these guys," he said brashly. "They're nothing special."

Sakura sighed and stepped back. "I'm not going to be part of this."

Shino followed. Naruto nodded to Sasuke and Hinata to do the same. After all, the main reason for Kiba attacking them was that he hated Naruto.

That left the two boys in the clearing. They began to circle each other, tossing back insults.

"Arrogant, are we?" Kiba asked snidely. "Why send your teammates back? You know I could beat all three of you."

"I would hate for them to get hurt," Naruto retorted. "Your aim is so poor, I would be terrified for them if you tried to hit me."

Kiba snarled angrily but contained himself. "At least I don't look like I have rocks on my head."

Naruto shook his head sadly. "You could not come up with anything better? Your dog is sitting under a tree over there, whining in fear, because he knows we are about to fight."

Kiba whirled around. Sure enough, there was Akamaru, whining next to Sakura. He turned back to Naruto. "You--"

Kiba blinked. Naruto wasn't there.

Suddenly, a heavy weight crashed into his head. Naruto had ran up a tree and jumped at him from above.

Kiba, snarling, reached up to his head and tried to pull Naruto off. The dual jinchuuriki leaned down next to his ear and _screeched _in it.

Kiba let out a scream of pain and redoubled his efforts to get Naruto off. He eventually succeeded, as Naruto got bored and wanted something more challenging. Throwing his opponent across the clearing and at a tree, he called to Akamaru, "Come on!"

But Akamaru wouldn't move. Naruto rebounded off the tree and started running back towards Kiba.

For some odd reason, a leaf blew straight through the clearing, fast and without needless buffeting. Both of the fighters stopped to watch it, curious as to what it could mean.

Then the wind struck.

It was a howling vertex, and though Shino, Sakura, Hinata, and Sasuke anchored their feet to the ground with chakra and were merely rolled into the bushes, Naruto, Kiba, and Akamaru were caught by surprise and flung in different directions.

Naruto came to minutes later, having blacked out when he hit a tree. He looked around and cursed. The sounds of a fight were coming faintly from the forest, perhaps five hundred feet away. Kiba lay unconscious next to him. Akamaru was on his chest, licking his face in a desperate attempt to get him up.

Naruto sighed, lifted the dog off, and got to his feet. "Wake him up, please," he asked Akamaru. He barked and got to work on Kiba.

The other boy soon jumped to his feet. "What? What happened?" he demanded.

"I don't know," Naruto snapped. "Come on, they're fighting!"

They raced through the forest, making good time and soon coming out into the clearing from before. Shino, Sakura, Sasuke, and Hinata were fighting with grass-nin- Naruto recognized them as the person who had given Anko back her kunai after she had thrown it at Kiba. He couldn't tell if they were a boy or a girl- they smelled… strange. Like they were neither and yet both.

Suddenly, though, Shino was flung off the field and hit a tree. Naruto suddenly realized that Sasuke, who was kneeling on the ground from a well-placed kick to the stomach, was the only one left on the field. And the grass-nin- who, he realized, had a slight demonic aura- was—

Oh, that was so _wrong._

The grass-nin had begun to elongate his neck, stretching his head- which was now growing fangs- out towards Sasuke. It looked as if he was going to bite him, and in all possibility that person was poisonous.

As one, Naruto and Kiba looked at each other, then threw themselves into battle, with Akamaru barking madly after them.

The grass-nin's progress towards his prey was suddenly impeded by the facts that a) two someones had grabbed hold of his neck, one twisting and one biting, and b) his prey was no longer there.

They twisted around, throwing off the two people who had been attacking its neck, then shortened it again and looked around for whoever had taken Sasuke.

There- in the tree!

The Kusa-nin rushed up the trunk, and had almost reached the two boys when they disappeared once again. It looked around, then rushed at their newest location. However, this time, when they disappeared, it made itself stop. There was, after all, an easier way to do this.

It jumped back to the ground, bit its thumb, made some handsigns, and began to shout his technique.

"Kuchiyose-"

Suddenly, a white and red blur crashed into it, sending their attacker into a tree. The ninja did not have a chance to get up and recover, as the blur kept after it, repeatedly slamming it against the tree. At last, the blur (still moving too fast for the human eye to follow) seemed to touch its midsection, draw its arm out, and grow a grayish-silver extension. It rammed its now-longer arm into the Kusa-nin's chest, then pulled it out again.

The blur slowed down at last, becoming Sesshomaru. The gray extension of his arm had been the Tojikin. He snarled and slammed the ninja against the tree.

**_"Why are you here?"_**

The ninja gasped, as Sesshomaru was cutting off all its air; then rolled its eyes up, tried to claw at his arm, and melted into mud, sliding to the ground, reforming itself, and then escaping into the earth.

Sesshomaru sighed and slowly relaxed. Their scent was gone.

Naruto jumped down out of the tree he had been hiding in, still half-carrying Sasuke. "Who was that?"

"Orochimaru," Sesshomaru said grimly, cleaning Tojikin on a handful of grass and sliding it back into his sash. "Among humans, he would be one of the top ten most powerful missing-nin. He probably wanted to mark Sasuke."

"Mark me?" Sasuke managed to gasp out. He was suffering from chakra exhaustion.

Sesshomaru nodded. "Orochimaru can bite people and leave a mark called the cursed seal. Only six people have it in the world today, because one out of ten people marked die from it. Even if you survive, you are almost certain to be doomed. It will affect your personality, corrupting your mind and slowly swaying you towards his point of view, until you will do anything for power. Since you still wish to destroy your older brother, you would probably seek him out and join him. He wants the Sharingan and he'll do anything to get it."

Sasuke stared at the taiyoukai in horror. "And there's no way I could resist, if I got marked?"  
"Yes, there is," Sesshomaru admitted. "But you would never be the same. You would become sadistic, bloodthirsty, and bitter. The desire for revenge would grow ever stronger, until you destroyed yourself. I believe, however, that there is one person in Konoha who has a cursed seal."

"Who?" Sasuke demanded.

"The second exam proctor," Sesshomaru answered solemnly. "Mitarashi Anko. I believe that, at this very moment, she will be seeking out Orochimaru- he was her mentor until he betrayed her, and she still hates him with every inch of your soul."

-----

Sesshomaru left soon after, assuring Naruto and Sasuke that they would not be held accountable for his interference. After all, an SS-rank nuke-nin had attacked them; without him, they might not have survived. In the meantime, it was quite impossible for the two teams to separate, as Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto, and Akamaru were the only ones awake, and they all agreed that there was safety in numbers. So for the rest of the day, and until the sun rose, the three of them (four if you counted Akamaru) sat together and talked. They each took it in turns to sleep, and so each got some rest. By the next morning, though, Team 8 departed, with Kiba throwing a last nasty look over his shoulder at Naruto.

Now Team 7 was all alone again, and with already a day elapsed. They had only four days now to get an Earth scroll, and that would take a bit of a stretch.

Luckily for them, an easy prey had wandered too near them.

The team from Waterfall was amazed to find themselves waking up, tied to a tree with all their shinobi equipment burning in front of them.

-----

Meanwhile, Sesshomaru had gone to the tower, where in his absence, Sarutobi had called up his two still (mostly) loyal students. And let me tell you, they weren't very happy about it.

Tsunade leaned over the desk, glaring at the Sandaime. "You called me out here because you said that Orochimaru was sniffing around again. I don't see him, so why am I here?"

Jiraiya nodded solemnly. "That's true. I'd rather not be here, you know; there's too many unpleasant memories around here."

At this point, Sesshomaru burst into the room. "I found him," he announced. "He attacked Teams 7 and 8 last night, and Anko caught him after that."

Sarutobi shook his head in despair. "How badly is she hurt?"

Sesshomaru let himself go and grinned slightly. "Oh, she's not hurt at all. I don't believe he was in any condition to fight her when she found him."

The Sandaime raised an eyebrow. "And who did that, I wonder?"

Sesshomaru sighed and smirked a bit. "Why, I have no idea! A demon, perhaps… only time will tell…"

Sarutobi snorted. Tsunade and Jiraiya, on the other hand, were not amused. They simply sat there, staring in a hostile way at the newcomer.

The Sandaime noticed and sighed. "Ah, I forgot. Sesshomaru, these are my two former students, Tsunade and Jiraiya. Tsunade, Jiraiya, this is Taisho Sesshomaru, an old friend of mine from the northwest."

Jiraiya and Sesshomaru nodded to each other. Tsunade simply ignored them. "Well, old man?" she asked with a slight snarl. "Can we go now?"

He sighed in return. "I had hoped you would stay for at least a few more days…"

"You hoped wrong," came the cold reply.

"How about this," he suggested. "Both of you stay until the end of the Chuunin Exams. They're still conducting the second stage, and we'll down and see who's coming in once we're done here. After the Third Exam is over, you're free to leave, and I'll never call you back."

Tsunade was quite startled at this development. Sarutobi had always been eager to get his students into the village occasionally, mostly to try to get them to take on new apprentices. So why was he letting them go now? "All right, old man," she growled, "what's the trick?"

Sesshomaru eyed the woman with surprise. For a ningen, she had audacity in insulting someone older and probably wiser than she was.

Sarutobi smiled and spread his arms wide. "There is no trick. Either you accept this deal, stay for a bit, then leave forever and never come back, or you go now (or in a few days) and keep coming back every so often."

"All right," she finally grumbled. "You win. I'll stay here until it's over."

Jiraiya nodded in acceptance as well.

The Sandaime stood up, still smiling. "Excellent! Let's all go downstairs, then… I want to see who's coming in now…"

-----

Team 7 was making good time, as they had ambushed a Waterfall team that had trying to do the same to them. They had been carrying an Earth scroll, and they sped ever closer to the tower, leaving the Forest of Death behind them.

As they walked into the tower, the four powerful people walked out onto a balcony. Naruto waved to Sesshomaru, who nodded in return; Sasuke and Hinata bowed slightly to the Hokage and the Sannin; then they continued into the next room.

Jiraiya looked at Sarutobi. "So," he asked offhandedly, "who were they?"

"Team 7," the Sandaime reeled off. "Uchiha Sasuke, Hyuuga Hinata, and Uzumaki-Taisho Naruto."

Tsunade and Jiraiya's heads turned slowly towards Sesshomaru, who shrugged. "I am his older adoptive brother," he explained.

-----

Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata had still got three and a half days free until the third exam, so they used it all to rest. Sasuke had used up nearly all of his chakra, and Hinata had sustained some internal damage when the Kusa-nin- Orochimaru? - had kicked her in the stomach. Naruto was all right, as things went, but he could still use the extra sleep. Training did, after all, take a fair amount out of him.

At last, though, the fifth day arrived. The team was as ready as it was ever going to be, so they headed downstairs.

After they had got in, only six other teams had arrived, out of a possible twelve. The other two rookie teams were there, as well as a team that had graduated the year before them, and the grey-haired gennin from the first exam. There was also the team from Otogakure, and the one from Suna that included Sabaku no Gaara. All in all, seven teams. Just over 50 percent- a miracle, considering the deadly test the psychotic proctor had dreamed up.

All seven teams lined up. There was an odd number, so someone would have to fight twice- that is, until the next proctor (a man who looked like he was going to keel over any minute, by the way he was coughing) announced that they had to hold preliminaries first, and the grey-haired gennin- Kabuto, was it?- raised his hand to quit.

The proctor looked around, but nobody else was quitting, so he shrugged and announced what would happen next. "All (cough) right, then. (cough) Please wait (cough) until the electric signboard"- he gestured (cough) - "flashes your name and that of your opponent. The first match will be-"

The signboard flashed two names...

**Uchiha Sasuke vs. Akado Yoroi**

The proctor- Hayate, Naruto thought he'd said- nodded slightly. "Well, (cough) then. Would the (cough) two contestants (cough) please stay here (cough) while everyone (cough) else goes up (cough) to the upper (cough) balcony."

The gennin and Jounin instructors drifted upwards, save for Sasuke and Yoroi, who stayed at ground level, looking at each other warily. As the last of the shinobi cleared off of the floor, they came to stand about twenty feet apart from each other, with Hayate between them.

He looked at both, then raised his hand, stepped back, and let it fall. "Hajime."

For a moment, neither gennin moved; then Yoroi sprang forward, putting Sasuke on the defensive. The older ninja summoned chakra to one hand as he pulled out three shuriken to the other. As he let the shuriken fly, Sasuke pulled out a kunai and batted them back towards Yoroi, who dodged them.

The Uchiha straightened up from his crouch and beckoned mockingly to the other gennin. "Can we please start the real fighting, then?"

Without another word, Yoroi charged at him, chakra-enveloped hand raised high.

But, as Sasuke found as the hand closed on his arm, it wasn't just chakra- he was getting steadily weaker. 'My strength...' he thought in surprise. 'It's fading away...'

He let out a snarl and kicked Yoroi off of him, then stood up- but not without some difficulty. When had he fallen? 'Why can't I even get up...?'

But before he could do anything, or even figure out what was happening, Yoroi attacked him more furiously than he had before, punching him several times about the torso before kicking him a few feet away.

The older gennin straightened up from his stoop with a smirk, running forward to Sasuke and taking a hold of him- this time, on his forehead. Again, the Uchiha heir's strength began to fade away- faster, this time. The arms trying to pry Yoroi off of him soon went limp and flopped to the ground. Sasuke simply lay there gasping for a moment, Yoroi's chakra-enveloped hand clenching on his head.

At last, he realized what was happening. "You... you're stealing... my chakra..."

Yoroi smirked under his mask. "I wondered when you would notice."

"Ugh..." Sasuke groaned. "Chikyuso..."

And with most of his remaining strength, he kicked Yoroi off of him.

The other boy soon got up, still smirking, outstretched hand still enveloped in chakra- Sasuke's chakra. "Heh heh heh... you still have power left...?"

'That was close,' the Uchiha groaned, 'but if he gets me one more time, then I'm finished. And it looks like it'll be a close-contact fight... what to do?'

Yoroi sprang forwards. Sasuke jumped back, running up the wall and onto the ceiling without thinking about it. 'I can't use taijutsu... he can just latch onto me and suck out more of my chakra, and I haven't got the strength anyway. But I don't have enough for ninjutsu, either...'

And then, as Yoroi threw two kunai and Sasuke dodged them again, still on the ceiling, the tiny glass bottle of pills rattled inside his utility pouch.

'Of course...' he thought. 'I'm such an idiot. Soldier pills.'

He quickly rooted around in the pouch for them and dragged them out. They looked completely innocent, but it was this that was going to win him the fight (he hoped), so he'd better use them well.

Swallowing one made all of his previous energy return. He quickly made several hand seals. His best chance would be a fire jutsu; that was what he knew best, after all.

_"Katon: Housenka no Jutsu!"_

The fireballs quickly blew towards Yoroi. One of them caught his sleeve. He cursed and started trying to put it out, giving Sasuke a chance to do another fire jutsu.

_"Katon: Gokakyuu no Jutsu!"_

This time the much-bigger fireball hit Yoroi head-on. There was a scream of pain, and Sasuke jumped down from the ceiling to see what had happened to his opponent.

But as he reached the blaze and looked into it to see Yoroi, Sasuke realized he hadn't hit Yoroi at all. That was a log burning in the fire, there.

Yoroi grasped him by the back of the neck, beginning the chakra drain again. "Having fun yet?"

Now it was Sasuke's turn to curse and struggle again. He barely managed to stab Yoroi in the side with the kunai he was holding before he couldn't move again.

When Yoroi let go again, he fell to the floor. No strength, even to get up. His opponent was much better off- he had burns all on his right arm, a bleeding stab wound (with the kunai still in it) in his side, and several bruises, but he still had most of Sasuke's chakra. There was nothing more to do. He knew he had no chance of winning the fight. It would be best to forfeit. Yet he somehow... couldn't bring himself to do it... to give in...

Then Sasuke's eyes widened. If Yoroi absorbed chakra on purpose, then-

Then-

As fast as he could, which was not very fast at all, Sasuke pulled out the bottle of soldier pills again. This time, though, he did not swallow only one. He ate five.

Yoroi was getting close to him again, one hand writhing with chakra for the third time. Sasuke hoped they took effect in time.

Yoroi closed in on Sasuke and started draining away all of his chakra. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as his dangerously low chakra levels almost made him faint.

Then the soldier pills took effect, and once again Sasuke was bursting with energy- _too much energy, _as it seemed. His clothes were flapping about him, blown to and fro by some invisible wind. Chakra filled his reserves, then his chakra circulatory system, and when both of those were full, it spiraled in the air around him.

Yoroi simply grinned and pulled it in, feeding more and more as his aura grew.

Sasuke grinned back, taking hold of Yoroi's outstretched arm and _pushing_ all the chakra he could into it.

Yoroi's expression quickly cycled through indifference, then anger, then pure fear. "S-stop!" he gasped, as if the words pained him. "Y-you'll--"

Even though he never got to finish what he was saying, everyone watching was soon able to see what he had been about to say, as a large explosion rocked the room and Yoroi was thrown back into a wall, immediately knocking him out.

"W-what just happened?" Sakura asked Kurenai nervously. Kakashi answered.

"The Akado clan's bloodline limit is to drain chakra from their opponents," he explained. "They keep this chakra in the outermost layers of their chakra circulatory system, and don't use any chakra of their own while they do this. Since the chakra was not taken with the owner's permission most times and has not been present in their body for very long, it cannot be used in jutsus or anything of the kind, and if it were to come in contact with the Akado's chakra, there would be an explosion and most of the Akado's chakra pathways would burst, rendering them unable to use any more of their chakra for the rest of their lives. What Sasuke just did was to give himself an overload of chakra and shove it so far into Yoroi's circulatory system that it met his reserves and triggered a large and rather nasty explosion."

Sakura nodded to herself as Sasuke tiredly tried to walk up the stairs, was intercepted by medic-nin, and dragged off to be checked up.

Three 'fights' later, the remaining contestants looked back up at the board. After the last three unsatisfactory, boring events, they were more than ready to have a good helping of blood and gore. Shikamaru had forfeited to Shino as soon as their match had been announced; there was a short match of deception between Kankuro and Misumi, which the former won; and then a tie between Ino and Sakura, who clearly knew little of the ninja arts.

And the board flashed again:

**Uzumaki-Taisho Naruto vs. Inuzuka Kiba**

The two boys jumped grimly over the railing to land on the floor. Hayate quickly started the match, then stepped off of the floor.

The last two times they had fought, there had been preliminaries- the human equivalent of dogs snarling, growling, and bristling their fur at each other.

This time, none were needed.

Naruto nodded to Akamaru to obey his master and attack him and drew the Chuudokusaiga.

Kiba beckoned Akamaru over and swallowed a soldier pill, giving another one to his dog.

Then they jumped for each other.

Kiba quickly used his first move. "Shikyaku no Jutsu!"

He jumped forward, leaving Akamaru behind and aiming for Naruto. The other gennin merely jumped over his offense, landing on the other side and turning to face him as it happened again.

As Kiba slid back to Akamaru, having wasted a good deal of his chakra and not accomplished anything, Naruto straightened up and finally transformed Chuudokusaiga into its larger form, having kept it dormant for the previous few minutes. "Shall we begin?"

His opponent answered with a snarl and threw a smokebomb, momentarily obscuring himself and his dog from view. Before the smoke had even cleared, Kiba's voice rang out again, twice- first:

"Ninpou: Juujin Bunshin!"

And second:

"Gatsuuga!"

As the smoke dissipated, Naruto was surprised by the two whirlwinds that erupted out of the fading haze. One of them caught him on the arm, tearing flesh apart and causing a deep cut the length of his forearm.

Naruto jumped over the next blow, and kept jumping as Kiba and Akamaru raged over the ground below. As he jumped over the consecutive attacks, his arm quickly healed and he flicked the blood off of it.

'This is too costly on my body,' he thought as he dodged yet another try. 'I have to do something soon, or I might end up in danger of losing. Perhaps it's time to unveil one of my trump cards.'

With that in mind, he allowed himself to begin drifting closer to the ground. As he started to fall, his eyes rolled back in his head until only the whites could be seen, and his eyelids closed as he retreated to his mind.

-----

Naruto's mind was amazingly unclean. Even though this sort of problem was usually caused by low self-esteem and depression, or lack of compassion from the outside world, and Naruto had none of these in any large form, his mind still took the form of a large sewer. At least he'd been able to clean it up a little- the water on the ground was clear and clean, the walls scrubbed of all dirt.

Naruto ran through the large room with the cage inside it without looking inside the cages. He'd never get tired of looking at his companions, but now was not the time. Even with the fact that live on the outside went much slower than it did down here, he could have fallen to the ground and broken something if he didn't get out in time.

At the back of the room there were four doors. One of them, which was yellow with blue patterns, had numerous chains wrapped around it, making sure that it could not open anytime soon. The other three- gold with a green pattern, orange with a red pattern, and white with red and gold patterns- had no chains on them. They were all closed.

Naruto dashed for the gold door with the green pattern and slowly, laboriously began to push it open.

In the cage behind him, two huge red eyes hovered near the edge of the bars. **"Oh, so you're using one," **whatever it was said in a loud, feminine voice. **"Is it really worth it in this fight, kitling?"**

Two more eyes opened in the cage. These were bright amber, and they were lower to the ground than the red ones, as if whatever owned them was slightly smaller. "Which one is he using?" asked a deep male voice.

**"Yours," **the other voice answered. She then directed her attention back to Naruto. **"Don't overextend yourself. You don't know if they'll hold the third round immediately after this or not."**

"Do not beat him up too badly," the second voice advised. "Those who were once your rival may make good subordinates once the rivalry is all but gone."

Naruto nodded silently to both of their advice as he finally eased the golden door open. Immediately, a blast of wind shot through the air. It was cold and unforgiving, almost sliding Naruto back a few inches and numbing his body. But with the wind came power, and he felt his body changing even as it grew more unfeeling. His hair changed to a pure white color, and his eyes to fully amber. The whisker-scars on his cheeks all but vanished, and his complexion grew several degrees paler.

The blast of power blew Naruto out of his mindscape just in time to sheath Chuudokusaiga and land gracefully on the ground as Kiba and Akamaru swung back around for another attack. This time Naruto did not jump away.

-----

Back in the balcony, the assembled shinobi were having a difficult time seeing what had happened. It looked as if Naruto had finally run out of energy and given up jumping, staying on the ground for just a second too long and getting himself caught by Kiba.

"W-what happened?" Hinata asked timidly.

"I don't know," Kakashi said worriedly.

But Sesshomaru had been the first to realize, and as the two whirlwinds came to a halt, he closed his eyes. 'Wise, Naruto... very good.'

And the smoke cleared to reveal not one, or two, but three Kibas, and each one splattered with some sort of a thick, sticky, reddish-brown liquid.

-----

Down on the battlefield, each Kiba jerked in surprise as two exact copies became visible to them.

The real Kiba cursed silently as the situation became apparent to him. 'Kuso... he must have henged himself into me after splattering Akamaru and I with this... whatever it is... mud? It's messing with my sense of smell, whatever it is... I can't tell who's who by smell... and something tells me it isn't a good idea to leave this stuff on too long... so what to do?'

He got a sudden spurt of inspiration. "Hey, Akamaru," he practically shouted, "come over here and do a Tsuuga, so I can tell you're you."

One of the other clones immediately responded. "Don't listen to him, Akamaru! I'm Kiba! That bastard just wants to kill you so he can win the fight himself!"

Kiba started in surprise. He had thought he would have to figure out which one of the clones was Akamaru, but...

'...Akamaru has to figure out which one is me,' he realized in growing horror. 'But he can't, because that stupid Taisho looks and talks exactly like me, and this stuff is messing with our scent.'

The third clone- Akamaru, he assumed- looked from one Kiba to the other, whimpering. And then Kiba realized something else.

'Why am I playing by his rules?' he asked himself in complete anger. 'He wants Akamaru to be confused, but I can just attack him on my own!'

And with that, Kiba turned around and punched Naruto in the face, sending him flying back several feet due to his unawareness.

Naruto cursed Kiba up and down inside his mind as he landed in a crouch, Henge undoing itself in a puff of smoke to reveal his new appearance. Apparently, the changes had translated over from his mindscape to the real world.

Kiba blinked. Okay, what--? But then his confusion disappeared and he began the Gatsuuga again, Akamaru following after him as they spun frantically toward Naruto. It didn't matter what he'd just done if they finished him off now.

But Kiba soon realized something was wrong. Suddenly, there was only one tornado going the length of the arena towards their opponent. He spared a quick look backwards.

There, on the floor, lay Akamaru, every limb stiffened and unmovable in paralysis.

Kiba let out a feral scream of rage, but he soon realized that despite all of his anger, he was coming out of his spin, like it or not.

The Inuzuka boy was immediately confused again. That backward peek had only slowed him down slightly, not enough to make him stop. So what--?

Naruto walked calmly forward as Kiba collapsed to the floor. He leaned over him and smiled gently.

"Give up."

"Never!" Kiba nearly screamed, trying to get up. Naruto flicked his hand, and he collapsed again, every muscle screaming in pain against some sort of poison.

"Give up," the dual jinchuuriki said, still smiling softly.

"W…" Kiba whispered. Anything more hurt terribly. "What did you do?"

"This is one of my bloodlines, the Dokubutsu Shinjou," Naruto explained. "It manipulates poison in any form. The liquid you had on yourself earlier was one of my special mixes- a basic poison, but when mixed with my blood, I can control it in any way. I ordered it to get inside your body through any cuts possible, then to spread throughout the bloodstream. I could then see your veins, because there was poison in them. Akamaru is merely paralyzed- it will wear off in less than half an hour. Your muscles, on the other hand, are being attacked by the poison, which, by the way, has been made far more potent by the remnants of the soldier pills you took. Give up now," he repeated for the third time, "before your muscles are permanently damaged."

Kiba shook his head again, unable to speak anymore.

"This is your last warning," Naruto gritted through clenched teeth. "The poison will reach your brain in a matter of seconds. I can withdraw it if you forfeit, but if it gets there before I do, I'm not sure what will happen."

Kiba shook his head for the last time, then gasped as his eyes rolled back into his head. His body began shaking uncontrollably, limbs twitching as his brain lost control.

Naruto sighed and beckoned to his body with one hand. From Kiba and Akamaru's pores drifted a faint red-brown mist, which came together slowly in Naruto's hand until it formed a large globe of liquid. He then clenched his hand over the globe, absorbing the poison into his skin.

Naruto turned to the examiner. "They won't be waking up for a bit, examiner, but they'll be fine."

"Winner: Uzumaki-Taisho Naruto!"

-----

The Chuunin Exam Third Stage Preliminaries drew to a shocked close some time later. After Naruto and Kiba's fights, there had been another particularly bloody one- another one where someone could have, and possibly did, get crippled for life.

Hyuuga Hinata vs. Hyuuga Neji.

Neji had won, of course. There had been no doubt that he would, not since the beginning, when he had shattered what little self-confidence Hinata had with several well-placed words. But the way he had drawn it out, toying with her… Popular sentiment among the Konoha rookies was against Neji. To have something like that done, especially to the person's own cousin…

The fight after that had been one that had not involved undue blood and gore, and had become an evasion match between Tenten and Kin. Tenten had eventually won, as she could easily shake off Kin's genjutsu and hurl numerous weapons at her, while Kin only used senbon.

The fight after that, however, had been Gaara versus Lee; and that had been an absolute bloody rout, as Lee had almost beaten Gaara by opening five gates, but had then had his right leg and arm crushed by Gaara's sand. That match- obviously won by Gaara- had been ended in a complete and utter silence.

The last two fights- Temari vs. Zaku and Dosu vs. Chougi- were overshadowed by the previous fights, and the shinobi were glad to see them over as Temari and Dosu advanced to the third round. The examiner had released them to go their separate ways, telling them that the third and final round would be held in a month, and they were to use that time to train.

He also announced the fights, writing them down and passing the paper around.

Naruto had no complaints about this arrangement, so he headed off. The other rookie nine dispersed, as Sesshomaru walked away with Sarutobi and the two Sannin, Jiraiya glancing back over his shoulder at Naruto as he left:

_'There's something very…familiar… about that boy…'_

-----

A/N: Done at last! I just crammed three or four chapters into this one… how troublesome. Oh, well, I'll be done with editing sooner. Only one chapter to go, now; I think I'll combine 9 and 10 into one. Or maybe I'll just skip over the month before the Third Exams. Well, the Shourousumin has **got **to go. That was just too troublesome. The scene with it in the original chapter nine has a lot of spoilers, though, so if you want some of those, hurry and take a look at that, because I'm going to be deleting it soon.

See you soon (I hope),

-FullMetalRuromaru


	5. One Month

Uzumaki- Taisho

Chapter Five

By FullMetalRuromaru

A/N: I've combined the old chapters nine and ten into this, so the next time I update after this, it will no longer be an edit. YES!!!

-----

As the other gennin walked out of the arena, Naruto caught up to Sesshomaru. "Train me?" he asked hopefully.

"No," Sesshomaru sighed. "I have to find something out. I will be too busy until after the end of the Chuunin exams- find someone else to train you."

He disappeared in a blur before Naruto could reply. The dual jinchuuriki simply stood there, mouth open and watching where his adoptive older brother had stood a moment before.

Sasuke caught up to him. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"He's never..." Naruto said quietly. "He's never refused to train me before, no matter what's been going on... I wonder what's wrong with him?"

Hearing Sasuke growl deeply, Naruto turned to him and let out a sad grin. "I don't think it's anything like that. But still..."

"You could train with me," Sasuke suggested. "Kakashi's helping me learn Raiton jutsus."

Naruto shook his head. "I'll manage."

"All right, suit yourself," Sasuke shrugged. "In the meantime, I'm going to go and visit Hinata in the hospital. Come on, let's go."

-----

Later that month, Shippo and Konohamaru met up with Sasuke and Naruto once again.

"So what have you been doing?" Shippo asked.

"We've been shuttling ourselves between the training grounds and the hospital," Sasuke admitted. "Hinata was really in danger, those first few days. That bastard Neji was really trying to kill her."

Konohamaru squeaked and stuffed his fists into his ears when Sasuke cursed. Naruto laughed and picked him up, slinging him over his shoulder. "You'll have to get used to it sooner or later, Konohamaru. We're not very happy with Neji- not very happy at all."

Konohamaru opened his mouth to ask another question, but was cut off by the medic-nin who suddenly jumped down beside them, panting.

"Uzumaki-Taisho Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke?" she asked, eyes sharp. When they nodded, she continued, "Your teammate Hyuuga Hinata has just had a relapse. Before she went under, she told us to bring you."

Naruto and Sasuke traded looks of surprise and fear, then jumped off after her. Naruto was still holding Konohamaru, and Sasuke was doing the same for Shippo.

-----

When they reached the hospital, the medic led them to a hospital room that was empty except for Hinata's frail figure lying unconscious on the hospital bed. As the medic closed the door behind them, the four boys took a seat, gazing at Hinata.

"They thought she was getting better," Naruto said hollowly. "They thought she'd make a full recovery..."

"They thought she was going to heal," Sasuke corrected him. "They didn't say if it would be a full recovery."

"That _bastard_," Naruto growled under his breath. This time, Konohamaru did not squeak at all. "He _wanted _this to happen! All because of the stupid family feud!"

"That's some feud, though," Shippo said solemnly. "I thought this sort of thing was forbidden by law down here."

"It is," spoke up Konohamaru, to everyone's surprise. The Hokage's grandson was still staring palely at Hinata. "He used the rules of the match to get around the law." Seeing the surprised looks he was getting, he explained hollowly, "I overheard him talking to the Hyuuga clan head, Hiashi. He said that he was well within the bounds of the law and did not deviate from the rules of the match."

"That's bull," Naruto retorted. "He attacked Hinata after the referee ended the match!"

"But he didn't connect," Sasuke realized. "So technically he hadn't done anything wrong."

Naruto was reduced to snarling and muttering. As they left the hospital that night, Shippo almost found himself pitying Neji.

Almost.

-----

-----

FLASHBACK (this has little or nothing to do with the previous scene)

-----

-----

_Sesshomaru disappeared in a blur before Naruto could reply. He appeared on top of the tower that included the arena, still able to see Naruto's shocked expression. He turned away and walked calmly back inside. Naruto would have to get used to working without him at one time or another; this seemed as good a time as any. For now, he had something to do._

_Sesshomaru jumped down the flights of stairs until he got into the arena, still full of debris from some of the fights. He'd thought he'd felt unusual energies during at least two of the matches, but with so many people there, he couldn't be sure._

_Now, however, with only himself present, his sense of smell was unhindered and free to seek out any scent in the immediate area._

_There were indeed two unusual powers there. He walked out of the building and towards the house he was staying in, thinking over what he had just found. Though unusual, to be sure, it was not astonishing to see that someone that had fought had had Miko powers. But the fact that someone else had had wolf youki was... surprising, to say the least. Konoha was not known for being loving towards demons._

_Furthermore, both had lost- and sustained some injuries as well, as both trails of aura had gone out the door that led to the hospital. That was also surprising- anyone who had energies like those should not have lost easily. But- _had _they lost easily?_

_And more importantly, could they even control their powers?_

-----

-----

END FLASHBACK

-----

-----

Now Sesshomaru sat on top of the hospital, pondering what to do next. He would not help Naruto with his training, that was certain. He would have to train himself, sooner or later; it would be more effective than anything else, seeing as he would probably make it up. Something nobody else knew... and very powerful, since it was Naruto doing it. That would be worth seeing. He almost pitied Neji...

But what to do about the strange energies? Of the people who had lost, the most seriously damaged had been Rock Lee and Hyuuga Hinata, though Inuzuka Kiba had also been rushed to the emergency room in case Naruto had not reclaimed all of the poison. It would probably be Kiba with the wolf youki; his family, after all, was associated with dogs, his father was not there (had he been killed on a mission? Sesshomaru didn't know), and it wasn't such a large step from dog to wolf. But the miko energy... he just didn't know. He wasn't very good at sensing it, anyway; for all he knew, it could have been any of the people present during the preliminaries. But who?

He shook his head and sighed. Like as not, the bearer of the powers would be revealed in time. In the meantime, he would just have to wait- thinking about this was just giving him a headache.

-----

The day before the Third Exam was to be held, Naruto and Sasuke met at Ichiraku Ramen to catch up on each other.

"So, what've you been doing?" Sasuke asked Naruto curiously.

"Can't tell you," Naruto said with a mysterious smile. "What about you?"

"Can't tell you," Sasuke replied, matching his smile.

"Miso ramen, please," Naruto asked the owner. "The proctor of the preliminaries was attacked, did you know?"

"Really?" Sasuke asked in surprise. "What happened to him."

"They thought it was life-threatening, but someone healed him," his teammate replied, beginning on his bowl of ramen. In actuality, Sesshomaru had come across the dead body and brought it back to life. The gossip was all over the village now, though who had leaked, nobody knew. In any case, it didn't involve the dead coming back to life, so they would survive.

Naruto smirked and called out for another bowl. "Did you hear about Dosu Kinuta?"

"Who, the mummy from Sound?" Sasuke frowned. "What's he got to do with anything?"

"They found his body," Naruto said somberly. "It was on the rooftop. There were slash-marks in the body and on the roof, like it was some giant animal."

Sasuke whistled grimly. "That's not very good."

Naruto shrugged. "Less competition for us. I'm more concerned about who did it- the Sand trio were staying in the hotel right across the street, and you know how psycho that Gaara is..."

"Yeah," Sasuke nodded grimly. His fight with Lee had been intense and brutal. He only hoped he'd be able to defeat the bloodthirsty gennin...

"Good luck," Naruto said, mirroring his thoughts. "You'll need it."

Sasuke shrugged, then to break the solemn mood, added, "Did you hear? Sakura's been training under some famous medic-nin."

"Good," Naruto said decisively. "That'll teach her more control. Now maybe she'll keep her mouth shut."

Sasuke shrugged again. Since he hadn't seen so much of Sakura for the past few months, he found that he minded her more and more infrequent fangirlism less and less.

As Naruto got up and turned to walk away, Sasuke called out after him, "Hey, Naruto?"

"Yeah?" the dual jinchuuriki yelled back, turning slightly.

"I know we both plan to win the tournament tomorrow," Sasuke said slightly (only slightly) more quietly. "But we can't both win. So if we face each other, then we're not teammates, at least for the fight. Don't hold back."

Naruto stared at him for a moment, then smiled grimly again. "You're a good friend, Sasuke. Let us simply hope we do not fight each other."

And with that he sprinted away.

Sasuke only later realized that he'd never promised not to hold back.

-----

Sesshomaru, still sitting on the roof of the hospital, heard footsteps behind him in the rather distinctive pattern of someone who is using a crutch.

Turning his head, he saw the boy who had lost to Gaara- Rock Lee. He was only barely walking around, using a crutch with his right arm and leg both in bulky casts.

There was a short silence, and then the 'beast' asked in surprise, "What are you doing here?"

"Thinking," came Sesshomaru's short reply. He sighed to himself inside. He'd have to be getting his social skills in shape again, for the upcoming council.

Lee looked at him oddly for a moment, then sat down a few feet away. He did not break the silence.

"Your fight was good," Sesshomaru said abruptly after a few minutes. "It was your bad luck to be paired off with him."

Lee looked up, startled, then sighed and looked down again. "I should have been able to defeat him."

"Not so," disagreed Sesshomaru. "If you had both been using your own power, you would have won easily. But he was using the powers of a demon far older than you, and you had only yourself. It is no wonder he was able to walk away instead of crawl."

"So what you're saying is," Lee said softly, "that he is much weaker on his own...?"

Sesshomaru shook his head. "Worse than that. Gaara has little to no power beside that of the demon locked inside of him. I would guess that people have been too afraid to train him in any way."

Lee sighed and shrugged. "Well, I lost and I don't have a demon, so I suppose I'm out of luck."

"Actually," said Sesshomaru, eyeing the gennin with new insight, "half of that may not be true. You did indeed lose, but there is no guarantee that you have no demon..."

"What?" Lee started. "I have a demon? What do you mean?!?"

Sesshomaru shook his head impatiently. "You _might_ have a demon. In the matches, two of the losing gennin had- odd- energies. However, with so many people in the room at the time, I couldn't be sure who it was- or even if the tiny scent I caught actually existed. When I came back later, it became apparent that someone did indeed have these powers, but I had lost my chance to tell who."

"So two of us losing gennin are demons?" Lee asked fearfully. His skin had turned an odd, pasty white color.

"No," Sesshomaru corrected. "One of you may be part demon, or have a demon sealed into you. The other has priest or priestess energy."

Lee nodded slowly, then frowned. "Priest or priestess energy?"

"Think of it as the complete opposite of demonic chakra," Sesshomaru explained. "It's so called because most of those who had it were girls who ended up becoming Shinto shrine girls, or 'miko'. A while ago, it was fairly common, but by now I'd say that the person who's developed it here is the only one within two or three hundred miles."

"I see," Lee nodded again. "So you think I might have one of these powers?"

"It is possible," Sesshomaru answered. "It was two of the losers, and both trails of energy lead toward the hospital. If you would permit me to, I could test you."

Lee went quiet for a few moments, looking down at his feet, and then spoke. "You know... they told me, the only way I'll ever be able to be a ninja again is to go through an operation. If I do it, then I'll only have a 50 percent chance of survival."

Sesshomaru nodded; that made sense. "If we discover you have one of those powers, then it may help you in the operation. It will certainly have no negative effect on you."

"Let's do it, then," Lee nodded. "When can you? What will I have to do?"

"You don't have to do anything," Sesshomaru answered, standing up and beckoning for Lee to do the same. "You just have to be there, and let me in."

"Let you in? To what?" Lee asked, confused. But then, Sesshomaru had walked over to him and grasped him by the arm. He started as he realized that that was the older man's only arm, then looked at Sesshomaru.

The taiyoukai was staring intensely down at him.

Lee was suddenly falling into darkness. The last thing he saw was Sesshomaru's body, dissipating into the breeze.

-----

After he had left Sasuke, Naruto headed off to the training grounds. He needed to work off some steam.

In the middle of one training ground was a large post, used as a dummy. It was scarred with several months' shuriken- and kunai-scarring, as well as the slight dents from taijutsu practice.

Naruto walked up to it, then punched it hard in one place where the wood was untouched. He kicked it with one leg, then bounced off of it in midair and kicked it with the other, alternating kicks.

How could he be so stupid?!?

Konoha was no place for a dual jinchuuriki, or for any jinchuuriki at all. At least in other ninja villages, jinchuuriki were valued as weapons for their strength. Here, though, in Hidden Leaf, they were just feared. Being one of the only villages to be attacked by a Bijou, Konoha was extremely hostile towards demons.

Some of the people were nice. Sasuke was a good friend, as were Shino, Shikamaru, and Chougi. Kakashi was a good person, even if he didn't even know the man all that well. Hinata was- well- Naruto beat down a blush. Konohamaru, Moegi, and Udon were all nice kids, and they had some potential, though he doubted that they'd ever be put on a team together.

But the third exam was being held outdoors tomorrow. In an arena. In front of the entire population of Konoha, a good deal of foreign shinobi, and who knows how many foreigners- not to mention the daimyo and a few samurai lords. And he was going to have to go out there and fight.

Naruto jumped up into the air and repeatedly kicked the log in the same place, over and over. His feet were making noticeable dents in the wood.

Could he keep himself under control while he fought Neji? He didn't know. What about Kankuro? He seemed to like to make people feel useless. Sasuke? He was powerful enough to make him use youki, even if only a little.

And what of Gaara, the next-strongest gennin?

The Shukaku's vessel was not peaceable. He killed. He enjoyed killing. He saw it as his reason for existing. And he'd already killed one contestant in the third exams.

Who would be next?

Not him, that would be for sure. But their fight would undoubtedly be messy, very much so. Should it take place in the arena, then spectators would die, especially those who could not move well.

That included Lee, Konohamaru, Moegi, Udon...

Naruto finally broke off the top of the log. He kicked it high into the air, then unsheathed the Chuudokusaiga. As the broken log fell, he swung up the sword, cutting it neatly in half and kicking the pieces aside as they hit the ground. He sheathed his sword and began to stalk away, his last thought lingering in his head.

That included Hinata.

-----

Lee woke up to find himself in a sewer, completely wet from the waist down. There were puddles all over the floor, as if the water had recently been drained away; he had fallen into one of these. Sesshomaru was leaning against the wall, waiting for him to wake up. "What happened?"

"I retreated into your mind, pulling you with me," Sesshomaru said, glaring at his now-wet haori. "So don't get killed in here, all right? I really don't fancy being in a coma until I die of old age."

They started down the hallway in a random direction, wandering aimlessly through the corridors until they finally came to a large room. The sounds of dripping water and loud, growling breaths echoed through the dark space. Lee and Sesshomaru carefully ventured towards the center of the room until they suddenly saw something- or some_one_- who was clearly a prisoner.

He looked almost exactly like Lee, but they had long, black hair, black wolf ears, and a wolf tail. His eyes were open, revealing them to be blue with no pupils, but they were staring out into thin air, clearly asleep. He was dressed in black furs and fine samurai armor, but they were tattered. His body was nearly completely shrouded in chains. As they came closer, he woke up with a snarl, tugging at his chains and growling at them. "Come to taunt me?"

Lee looked at him strangely. "Who are you?"

"I am you, you human fool," he laughed slightly insanely. "I am your dark side; I am your dreams that will never be fulfilled. I am everything you cannot be, and I will kill you!"

Sesshomaru drew Tojikin as he walked around behind the wolf- demon. "If you don't stop your yelping then I won't let you down," he told him as he began to disintegrate the chains with short bursts of light from his sword.

As the taiyoukai released the last of the chains holding him up, the demon crashed to the ground. He still had a few of them around his legs and ankles, so he didn't try to stand, but he did sit up and rub his shoulders. "So what are you going to do with me? Kill me?"

Sesshomaru looked at him oddly. "I'm not going to kill you. That could cause an international war. What I am going to do is make you work with Lee. After all, if he dies, then so do you."

Lee and the wolf demon stared at him. Sesshomaru glanced up. "Don't look at me like that. So, what's your name?"

"Um... I don't think I have one..." the other demon said hesitantly.

"How about... let's see..." Sesshomaru mused quietly. "Kouka? No, Kousho. Yes, that will suit you quite nicely."

Lee and the newly dubbed Kousho looked at each other. "Nice to meet you," Lee told him, holding a hand out to shake.

Kousho hesitantly took his hand, then shook it carefully and let go as if he had been burned. "So, what now?"

"Now," Sesshomaru said as he removed the last of the chains, "we stay here until we can find a way to combine your and Lee's bodies for seven hours and summon you to the real world."

"A summoning contract?" Lee suggested. "Gai-sensei would have let me sign his, but I couldn't use my chakra."

"Not necessary to only summon one," he replied. "All you need is a bit more chakra and the permission of the individual. So, can we summon you to the real world?"

"Um, sure," Kousho said. "Say, what is the real world?"

-----

That night, Kakashi was waiting at the main gate for an old friend, wondering when she'd turn up. She had said that she would be here to watch his team compete in the finals; she needed to come back to Konoha to get some medical records, anyway. But the question was, when would she turn up?

At last, she turned up, walking through the gates just after nine o' clock. Rin still had brown hair and brown eyes, and she still wore the two stripes on her cheeks. However, that was where the similarities to her younger self stopped. She now had circles under her eyes. Her face was tight and drawn, with several small scars on it.

When she saw her former teammate, she smiled tiredly. "Hello, Kakashi."

"Yo," he answered lightly as he jumped down from the building he'd been standing on. "So you're staying with me?"

She nodded. "I tried to get a hotel reservation before I came, but everything here was filled up. Thanks."

"No problem," he answered, starting to lead her through the streets.

However, Rin soon stopped him with a pleading look.

"The memorial stone... can I see it?"

Kakashi hesitated, then nodded, changing direction and heading toward the forest.

They took only a few minutes to reach training ground 7. Rin had lost very few of her skills as a shinobi, and still retained the ability to treehop. However, just before they reached it, Kakashi held out a hand to stop, frowning through the screen of foliage that obscured the clearing from view. After recognizing the person in the training ground, though, he straightened up and smiled reassuringly at Rin. "It's all right."

Walking into the clearing, he said out loud, "You're here late, Sesshomaru-san."

The white-haired man did not turn from where he watched over the memorial stone from a tree. "Indeed, but perhaps you should not be one to talk, Kakashi-san."

Kakashi nodded. "That may be true."

Sesshomaru sighed. "Lately, it has become harder to distinguish what is true and what is not... people consider it better to stick on the beaten path than to invite uncertainty and the ability to change into their lives."

"And which is better?" asked Kakashi keenly.

A frozen sigh whispered from the Taiyoukai's lips. "Only time will tell, Kakashi-san... only time will tell..."

At last Sesshomaru turned to face the two, and Rin had to bite back a gasp at the strangeness of his face. Even as she did this, though, he raised an eyebrow as if he had heard her.

Then, his eyes suddenly flashed wide open with surprise.

"This is my former teammate," Kakashi was saying, exposed eye begging for Rin to introduce herself and make a good impression.

Rin gave him a strange look, but said to the other man in any case, "Watashi wa Hitotoki Rin."

Sesshomaru gave her a half bow. "Watashi wa Taisho Sesshomaru."

As he straightened up, their eyes met. There was an awkward silence for a few moments as they looked at each other keenly, as if trying to discover something about the other, but it soon passed.

"I take my leave," Sesshomaru said with another half-bow, leaping out of the tree and vanishing in an ivory blur.

Kakashi remained quiet for another moment as Rin gazed off in the direction he had gone, then asked, "What was that about? Have you met him before?"

"I'm not sure," his former teammate said confusedly. "He seems familiar, but... I don't remember him..."

_'And just why do I feel so protected...?'_

-----

Sesshomaru finally made it back to the house at just after ten. He had not only had to explain to Kousho what the real world was, but why he should come out, what the strange smells in the hospital were, why Lee was there, and why he couldn't just go out and attack Gaara out of the blue. He had also ended up teaching the other boy taijutsu; he was only glad that the two boys, being two halves of the same whole, could share experiences, so that he need not teach Kousho Lee's entire style. He didn't even know it, in any case.

And then had come the meeting with Kakashi's teammate. Hitotoki Rin.

Rin...

How many memories that name brought up...

Sesshomaru tugged himself away from the past with a scowl. For now, he had to be on guard. This entire city was fraught with tension- he was willing to bet for the Chuunin exam tomorrow. It could explode at any time. In fact, it probably would.

But before he returned to preparing for the next day, Sesshomaru allowed himself one last thought of the med-nin.

Why did she look so much like his late foster daughter?

-----

The next day dawned at last. Sesshomaru had had to give Naruto sleeping pills to make him get some rest. But the dual jinchuuriki had been up before the dawn, and he had given up on it. After all, sleeping pills did not work as well on those with demonic blood.

Naruto spent most of the morning getting ready. Most of this was done through an illusion: the same appearance he had had at the beginning of the exams, but with kunai and shuriken holsters in every imaginable place possible. This was to create another illusion, this one in the mind of the opponent. It would only last past the first opponent, but it would work for that at least, and obscure most of his abilities.

But underneath the illusion, Naruto looked much the same as he had in Inuyama. He had no shuriken or kunai holsters. He was still dressed in a haori. He had removed the gloves that he had used through the preliminaries.

There was one major difference, though.

The haori Naruto was now wearing did not have any sleeves.

-----

Naruto reached the arena fifteen minutes ahead of time. Most of the other gennin were already there, and the proctor beckoned them over to tell them about a change.

"We had to change around the order," he told them as the last of the finalists walked up. Now there were Naruto, Sasuke, Shino, Temari, Kankuro, Neji, Gaara, and Tenten, standing around the man in a semicircle. "The sound gennin couldn't make it."

He held out a slip of paper with the new order of matches on it. Tenten would be fighting Temari first. Then Naruto would fight Neji. Kankuro would fight Shino, and Sasuke would fight Gaara.

"Any complaints?"

When there were no comments, the man straightened up. "Well, then. The first two of you need to be down in the arena in 5 minutes. The rest of you have to go up to your balcony." He pointed toward a flight of stairs on his left. "As the matches end and the new ones are announced, the fighters should walk down. Not before, though. Don't fight amongst yourselves in the gallery, don't fight outside of the matches. That's it."

The gennin drifted up to the balcony, save for Tenten and Temari, who faced each other in the center ring. The crowd quieted, sensing the start of the matches was near.

Naruto looked around the arena as Sarutobi stood up and started making a speech about the exams. Hinata and Kiba were sitting together in one of the middle balconies. The Kage's box not only held the Hokage and the Kazekage, but Sesshomaru and two humans he didn't know- one with long, white hair and red lines on his cheeks, one with two blonde ponytails and a diamond on her forehead. Both emitted an aura of power.

The proctor stood back from the two girls as the Hokage finished.

"Hajime!"

----

A/N: AT LAST!!! It's done!

The next time I update, it won't be an edit. It will be completely new material. I can't believe I'm finally done... at last!

Nothing else more to say.

Oh, wait. The names.

It didn't sound right to have Rin introduce without a last name, but I don't know if she had one or not. I didn't think she did, so I gave her one- Hitotoki, which means 'time'. I can't tell you _why _I named her that. Too many spoilers.

Lee's other half's name is Kousho. That means, according to the online Japanese dictionary, 'facing the heat'. However, I looked it up in my pocket (material) Japanese dictionary first, and I know it means something... I just can't remember what... sweatdrop

Anyway, the haori with no sleeves thing is leadup to one of Naruto's techniques. This one is pretty weird in hindsight, but it comes in handy, and it's not like people haven't existed in Naruto before with this particular feature... I say no more. Let's just say that if he had sleeves, they would be ripped to pieces when he uses it.

Ok, that's all. Thanks for reading.

Hope to see you soon,

FullMetalRuromaru


	6. And So

**Uzumaki-Taisho**

**Chapter Six**

**By FullMetalRuromaru**

-----

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

-----

As the fight began, the two girls jumped back. Tenten pulled out several kunai, throwing them at Temari, who deflected them with her battle fan.

Naruto turned away from the fight- which he didn't find particularly interesting- to survey the arena.

It was a fairly standard arena, as they went. The spectators were seated on all sides- he saw Kiba sitting next to Hinata in one place, and Sakura and Ino arguing in another- and the two Kages in a balcony facing the fighters, higher than all the rest. Inside the box were, obviously, the Hokage and the Kazekage, but also a man with long, spiky white hair, a woman with long, platinum-blonde hair in two pigtails, and, surprisingly, Sesshomaru. Naruto nodded in respect to the last one and turned his attention to Shippo, who had just popped up on the balcony beside where he was standing with the other contestants.

"Sesshomaru wants to know what you think Sasuke's odds of winning against Sabaku no Gaara are," Shippo whispered to him in a low voice. "The lady in the box, Tsunade, is an old student of the Third's and a famously bad gambler. He says she is betting on Uchiha and wants to know if this is a bad omen or not."

"He'll probably lose," Naruto muttered back. "He hasn't awakened his bloodline limit yet, so he can't use any of his clan techniques. Kakashi's probably been training him in taijutsu, but there's no way he's even as good as Lee in only a month, and Lee was almost killed."

Shippo nodded with a frown, then popped away in a puff of smoke. A moment later, he reappeared on Sesshomaru's shoulder and started whispering in his ear.

Naruto raised an eyebrow. Clearly, he had been paying slightly too much attention to one or another of the Konoha Jounin.

He went back to scanning the stadium. Also in the gallery reserved for the contestants were Shino, Kankuro, Neji, and Gaara, who was in a corner far away from everyone else. Temari and Tenten, of course, were already fighting in the arena below; but Sasuke had, worryingly, not shown up at all yet. Naruto didn't think he'd chickened out; if Sasuke had gotten two broken legs, he would have dragged himself there. The only explanation was that Kakashi had rubbed off on him. Well, that or he just wanted to make an overly dramatic entrance.

The crowd roared bloodthirstily. Naruto glanced down to see that Temari had beaten Tenten to unconsciousness. He sighed and stood up as the proctor announced the winner and several Chuunin cleaned up the weapons littering the ground.

Naruto walked slowly down the stairs, thinking over his strategy. In front of him, Neji strode briskly into the arena, and he followed, coming out into the bright sunlight and the roar of the crowd.

-----

Up in the stands, Hinata was horribly worried. Her teammate- her powerful, strange teammate, who she must admit she hardly knew- was now fighting her cousin, her strong but cold cousin who had nearly killed her.

No, she would not root for Neji in this battle. He was her cousin, but that last blow had been for death. But she wouldn't root for Naruto either. She had felt his strange energy at times when he was unsettled. If he lost control, or Neji angered him enough, he could kill the boy in a single blow- if he so desired.

Hinata could only hope he did not.

Beside the Hyuuga heir, Kiba watched her with a worried eye. After her relapse, she'd been having trouble breathing at times, and had coughed up blood on more than one occasion. If the matches got her too exited, then she could hurt herself.

He couldn't let that happen. If Naruto would fight for her against Neji, then he would make sure she did not get hurt- the only thing he could do to redeem himself in her eyes.

-----

As Naruto walked calmly into the arena, the proctor sighed.

"Good. You two already know the rules, so I don't have to say them again. But we want a nice, clean fight. No killing."

It wasn't clear which one he was talking to, so Naruto felt slightly offended that the proctor might think that he could die by Neji's hand.

"Looks like you have something to say," Naruto noted, seeing Neji's face.

"Your eyes say you are completely sure of yourself," his opponent replied, Byakugan activated already. "It will make the fight that much more interesting, when you realize your fate and fall into it."

"Enough of this fate crap," Naruto replied. "I can assure you, with information from reliable sources, there is no such thing."

In the stands, Hiashi turned to his younger daughter.

"Neji is the most powerful and promising young Hyuuga at this time," he told Hanabi. "His blood is the thickest and most potent. Watch how he fights."

"Yes, father," she replied obediently.

Neji took up a fighting stance.

'Distance fighting is best for now,' Naruto reminded himself. 'It will keep up the mask I have set for this battle, and it will keep my tenketsu open- not that I couldn't just open them again, if they were closed.'

He pulled out ten shuriken from his weapons pouch, putting one finger through each hole. He then carefully made a hand seal.

'Kage Bunshin no Jutsu.'

Fifteen more clones appeared, from nowhere, next to him. They formed a straight line.

Neji smirked.

As one, the clones jumped into the air- all save two, who remained where they were. In pairs, the remaining fourteen took various positions- one pair in a tree, several on the walls, one just out of Jyuuken range, directly in front of Neji. The rest spread themselves out around him.

Then, as the pair in front of him leaped up and directly over, one hundred sixty shuriken were let fly.

Neji remained calm and cool as they flew toward him. 'Fifteen of those are bunshin, so 150 of the shuriken are also illusions,' he reasoned. 'Therefore, I need only dodge ten, and ignore the rest.'

He used his Byakugan, and a moment later his eyes widened in surprise. 'His skills don't seem to have improved... but it looks like the shuriken are real! Did he spend all his time developing an illusion that could fool the Byakugan?!?'

Neji kawarimi-ed out of the way. Landing a safe distance away, he watched in stony silence as the shuriken thudded into the log. Most disappeared in smoke; when it cleared, only ten were embedded in it. The clones, however, remained.

'He was a foreigner before he came here. It wasn't even six months ago. They wouldn't have let him learn Kage Bunshin,' he reminded himself. 'Also, he's a gennin. A very subtle one, it looks like. Use of poison, throwing weapons, and genjutsu... and he looks like a walking arsenal. He shouldn't have an illusion like that, but with his area of expertise, it should be easy enough to defeat him.'

"Come on then, Uzumaki-Taisho," Neji said out loud, beckoning with one hand. "Use your Kekkei Genkei. It's your only chance at this point. If you're attempting to beat me because of my fight with Hinata-sama, then your chances are absolutely miniscule. Give me some competition. Even the odds."

"My Kekkei Genkei?" Naruto asked tonelessly, tilting his head to the side. "Which one?"

"Stop playing games!" Neji snarled. "Your Kekkei Genkei! You can't possibly have more than one! Now activate it, before I blast you into oblivion!"

Naruto snorted. "I find it galling that you think it possible."

"NOW, Uzumaki-Taisho!"

"Why should I?" he asked softly, head leaning forward until Neji could not see his eyes. "It's not like it would take all that effort to defeat you like this... I have the motivation, after all..."

"You're arrogant beyond all belief," Neji snorted. "It is your _fate_ to lose to me, because I am a genius and you are not. It is I that will not have to make an effort."

"Amazing that, with the famed Byakugan, you could be so blind," Naruto replied quietly. "Underneath the underneath, Hyuuga Neji. Use your eyes, and find the truth. You can see me. You can see us. You can see everything. And yet you deny it. Psychological warfare will not gain you anything now."

Neji drew himself back into his fighting pose. "I grow tired of this."

"Really?" Naruto replied, feigning surprise. "Me, too."

The next instant, Neji had charged Naruto. Coming into close range, he immediately let off a flurry of Jyuuken strikes, closing many of the tenketsu on Naruto's arms and torso. His opponent made no move to stop him then, or when he attacked his legs.

Neji paused, panting slightly but triumphant. This baka's legs would be feeling like lead right now, as would his arms; he could probably barely lift them. One good strike should finish the job.

"You're finished, Uzumaki-Taisho," he said jeeringly, readying the final blow and drawing back his arm. "One such as you is fated to fall to one such as me."

"Fall to you?" Naruto repeated. "Fated? I rather think not."

And the three tails that, in the month since the Chuunin Selection Exams started, had been waiting limp and motionless for their time, sprang to life.

-----

A hushed silence fell over the arena.

The foreign boy had tails.

_Tails._

And with those tails, he had trussed up Hyuuga Neji, like a helpless, unwitting chicken.

The silence ended as most of the audience burst out laughing.

After all, there is nothing so much they enjoyed as complete and total humiliation, save perhaps complete and total carnage. One was happening now. One would probably happen within the next few minutes.

Yes, most of the crowd were happy souls.

Except for a few.

These select few were almost completely shinobi. They were the ones who realized that there was something wrong with a boy having three tails, two red and one white.

Because they were shinobi, it was not in their nature to make a fuss. So they sat or stood quietly, both in the stands and at their positions. But each and every one of them readied themselves, reaching for a kunai, a shuriken, or any weapon. Some began a handseal. Some tensed their muscles in readiness. A few even began channeling chakra to their limbs in preparation for a full-on taijutsu assault. And so they were.

Down below all of them, Naruto had hoisted Neji off the ground. One tail took the brunt of his weight, another made sure his arms and legs stayed motionless, and the last one kept his fingers separated so that he could not use handseals. The Hyuuga prodigy was completely helpless, and everyone knew it.

Or thought they knew it.

Two knew better.

Uzumaki-Taisho Naruto, and Hyuuga Neji.

And so was life.

Naruto stared expressionlessly up at his captive. "Your first mistake was making the assumptions you did. I think you can now tell that I am not, in fact, a weapons master, as you believed."

Neji's bright red face was testimony to that.

"I encouraged that illusion. I brought all my swords, when I only needed two at most. I overloaded on weapons. I made sure that my tails did not move, that my ears"- they popped up from his hair now, drawing a startled stare from Neji- "were not showing. I was a strange opponent, to be sure, wearing fairly traditional clothing, with an unheard of clan name and bloodline limit and far too many weapons, and with the lumps on top of my head, my whisker-scars, and my supposedly fake tails. But you wouldn't have thought that unusual in a ninja; to look eccentric is not eccentric at all in the shinobi world. And so I appeared, and so you fell for it."

Neji's face was now purple. Naruto was not strangling him. This was from rage, shame, and disgrace.

"Let go of me!" he snarled.

"I don't believe I will," Naruto replied calmly, looking up at him.

Neji lost it. Gathering his chakra, he blasted the sensitive tails away with a Kaiten. Coming out of the spin, he snarled out loud and charged at Naruto.

"You asked to see my bloodline limit?" Naruto asked. "The first one will not help in this battle, but you are foolish enough to challenge me in this way. I will use the second."

The clones from the beginning, who had been standing unnoticed around the edges of the arena, sprang around him into a circle. Before Neji reached them, the fifteen other Naruto copies burst into smoke.

Thus fortified and covered with a smokescreen, Naruto made his move.

Flames scorched the heavens and the earth. From inside the smokescreen came actual smoke, driving Neji back as he burst out coughing.

**"Does this change your outlook any?"** an amused but bestial voice asked from inside the cloud. Naruto walked out to stand before Neji.

Where before, with his first bloodline, his hair had turned all silver and his eyes pure amber, with this one his hair turned flame-red and his eyes the same color. His complexion was now more tanned, and his whisker marks very evident; where before his expression had been unfeeling and cold, he was now smirking, giving a slight glimpse of elongated canines. Where he had stepped, embers flared, then died.

**"Ready to be defeated, Hyuuga?"** Naruto asked, words ringing in the suddenly still air.

Before the suddenly-frightened Neji could respond, Naruto had sped behind him and sent him flying forward.

**"What's wrong, Hyuuga?"** he taunted. **"Get up! It's my fate to lose, right? What are you afraid of?"**

Neji picked himself up shakily, then focused on Naruto. This shouldn't be happening. He'd studied the other's movements so carefully, been sure he was a weapons master. It was the best explanation for why he carried all the extra weapons, why he had six swords. But the other boy had been faking all along, a master of deceit. Even the Jyuuken put on him not ten minutes before had already been nullified. Could he truly win?

Of course he could.

He still had his trump card, after all. It was a blow to have to use it this early in the matches, but it was an impenetrable defense. An unbreakable move. Uzumaki-Taisho Naruto could not possibly stand up to it.

Neji readied himself as Naruto leapt forward again. Just as the other boy reached him, he flung out his arms, gathered his chakra, and began to spin.

"Kaiten!"

-----

The arena fell into a shocked silence as Neji revealed his trump card. Naruto, too close to change course, slammed into the blue orb and was sent flying back about ten feet before he regained his balance and landed in a crouch. Straightening up, he remarked, **"Well, that was unexpected."**

Neji rushed forward again, delivering several separate Jyuuken strikes before announcing his next attack. "Hakke Rokujuuyon Shou!"

Naruto was knocked back instantly as Neji began landing rapid hits on him, calling out the numbers as he reached them. As he finished with the sixty-fourth strike, he stepped back, smirking, and Naruto collapsed to the ground.

"You see, Uzumaki-Taisho?" he asked gleefully. "Even with your two bloodline limits, you still could not defeat me. It was your fate to fall to me, Hyuuga Neji-"

**"Why?"** Naruto asked quietly.

"Why what?" Neji asked, taken aback. "Why did I attack Hinata? Why do I know of fate? Why-"

**"Why do you persist on thinking you've won?"** his opponent clarified, standing easily as a blast of youki cleared his tenketsu. **"So you have some sad back story. Big deal. Doesn't everyone? At least you have a chance to start over. You're strong. You probably have that weird seal thing, but if you remove yourself from the Hyuuga home and avoid the others, then you won't have to deal with anything from Main House members. You even know a lot of their 'secret' attacks."**

"Do you really think they'd just let me walk away?" Neji shouted furiously. "I'm Hyuuga! We're forced to stay there if we know any Jyuuken!"

**"Do you call that keeping you there?" **Naruto asked. **"I call that 'slavery', which is illegal in Hi no Kuni, in case you hadn't noticed.**"

Neji was at a loss for words.

**"And why did you think you could beat me? Jyuuken has a momentary effect on me at best. Your speed and strength are nothing special. You don't seem to have any jutsu at all,"** Naruto intoned. **"You're overconfident and can't see what's right under your nose even with that bloodline limit of yours, and to top it all off you won't shut up about such ridiculous concepts as fate. You should just quit now and let yourself down easy."**

Neji watched in amazement as Naruto unsheathed the Chuudokusaiga, baring the blade. A clear sheen covered the metal; this was the sword's own poison, not used in the battle with Kiba because the bloodline limit made it unnecessary.

"**It's****only a slight** sleeping agent," Naruto told him, voice and appearance receding back to normal as he let the fire bloodline limit go. "You'll wake up in about an hour or two with a bit of a headache."

And with that, he gave Neji a slight gash on the shoulder, and the match ended.

And so was fate- left lying in the dust of a shinobi arena.

-----

The arena was in silence after that match. The spectators were in shock at the Hyuuga genius's defeat at the hands of a complete nobody.

Up in the stands, Kankuro (whose match with Shino was next) yelled down to the referee, "I forfeit!" His sister, resisting the urge to hit him over the head with her fan but realizing the value of letting Gaara fight now before he slaughtered them all, followed suit reluctantly. Although they tried to make it look like they was afraid of the quality of the Konoha-nin, the proctor was suspicious anyway.

But none of this was noticed by the audience as, at first slow and scattered, applause and cheers began to ring out.

Naruto looked up in amazement. He had been walking back to the stairs, to go back up to the fighters' area, when he'd heard the first bit of clapping. Now it began to crescendo, growing in volume until most of the arena was applauding in approval.

Naruto grinned up at the audience and puffed out his chest. He'd been forced to leave the village because they hated him. Now, at last, they applauded him and didn't care that he had demons.

He continued up the stairs, the clapping still ringing in his ears.

-----

Now the applause died down, an expectant hush falling over the arena. The audience was waiting expectantly for the next two contestants, Uchiha Sasuke and Sabaku no Gaara- one of which was not there.

Gaara made a handseal, vanished in a swirl of sand, and reappeared in the arena.

In the fighter's area, Ino leaned out over the railing. "Where's Sasuke-kun? If he doesn't come soon, he's going to be disqualified!"

"He'll be here," Naruto reassured her. He had just finished climbing the stairs up. "He'll be here."

As he finished his words, a cloud of leaves appeared, swirling around in the arena below them. As they slowed and stopped, the leaves falling to the ground, Sasuke and Kakashi appeared.

"Yo!" Hatake said, eye in a V. "Sorry we're late!"

"Liar," Naruto muttered.

Sasuke looked up, found him, then gave him a fierce grin.

The proctor sighed. "At last you arrive, Kakashi. Uchiha was about to be disqualified."

Sasuke gave Kakashi a frosty glare. Naruto leaned forward, trying to see, then settled back with a disappointed sigh. Sasuke's eyes were still black. He was showing no signs of the Sharingan.

Without the Sharingan, he would die at Gaara's hand.

"Hajime!"

-----

A/N: cries At last it's done... sorry for the long wait, everyone! -.-; I was supposed to post this in March sometime, but I got really distracted on another story I'm writing with a friend... and then... yeah. Sorry. And now it's shorter than normal... bleh.

FullMetalRuromaru


	7. It Begins

Uzumaki-Taisho

By FullMetalRuromaru

Chapter Seven

-----

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

-----

Sasuke stared at Gaara as the proctor began the match. He was in a defensive crouch, wearing no weights and completely ready to move.

He should have forfeited the match. He didn't have the skills necessary to defeat the Suna Jinchuuriki: namely, the Sharingan. When he had been cheating in the first exam, he had been using the oddly acute sense of hearing to guess at what other people were writing. He had used a mild genjutsu to make it look like he had the Sharingan, because at the time he had not wanted anyone to know that he had a paranormal hearing. Now he knew better. The Sharingan was worth far more than that.

He could not use many of Kakashi's powerful. They required the Sharingan to work, or a lot of training, skill, or chakra he just didn't have. They'd worked on that during the month, but without an activated Sharingan, even Kakashi wanted to have him forfeit.

Sasuke had refused. He _needed_, desperately needed, to catch up to his brother. Itachi- he restrained a growl at the name- had graduated from the Academy at age seven. He had not only activated but mastered the Sharingan at age eight, and made chuunin at age ten. By the time he was thirteen, he was an ANBU squad captain.

Sasuke knew that this schedule was too much to ask of himself. He did not have the help of an entire clan, as his brother had done. But he did attempt to stay only a year or so behind wherever he could. He had graduated from the Academy five years late, had as yet not even activated the Sharingan. He'd never been on even a C-class mission; he had no business being in ANBU. But here was his opportunity to cut the gap for being a Chuunin by two years.

He couldn't resist.

How had his team been nominated? You were supposed to have been on at least a C-rank mission before you started these. True, their teamwork had always been pretty good, and Naruto, Hinata, and him had always been strong in their own right, but they hadn't been in a single life-or-death situation before this.

All right, that wasn't right. Hinata had been kidnapped and Naruto had rescued her, and he had survived the Uchiha Massacre (even though, he reminded himself bitterly, that was more Itachi's doing than anyone else's). But it was only Naruto who had actually been in control of the situation- and from the looks of it, he had done it many times before.

So Sasuke had no chance of winning, or of becoming a Chuunin. Hinata had lost in the preliminaries; she didn't either.

But Naruto… Naruto might actually have a chance.

Sasuke smiled wryly. He would throw himself into the fight and prove that he was worthy. Even without a Sharingan, he could fight. Maybe not win, not against this opponent. Maybe not even survive. But he could fight and show he knew _something_.

He wanted to fight Naruto one day, after all, and this tournament might just give him the opportunity to do that.

Sasuke jumped forward, throwing himself into the attack.

Gaara had been murmuring to himself, trying to soothe the restless Shukaku. Had Sasuke been able to hear what he was saying about giving his mother sweet, powerful blood, he might have backed off then and there and forfeited. But as it was, Sasuke was lost in his own reverie, until he leapt forward.

Gaara immediately let the sand out of his gourd, letting it flow forth and attack Sasuke. The Uchiha countered, dodging each tentacle with hairline precision and exact speed until he saw an opening and threw two shuriken as a test.

Immediately Gaara's sand came up and, a heap of it forming itself in the way, got the two shuriken stuck in it. The sand quickly reshaped itself into a clone that had the two shuriken in its hand. It sent them spinning back at Sasuke, who dodged, mentally cursing. 'As if I could handle one, now I've got _two_ to deal with!'

Sasuke dodged each tendril of sand with the least possible movement, conserving his energy for the fast taijutsu and ninjutsu he would have to use once he found an opening. The best way of getting to Gaara would probably be to melt the sand into glass so it was immobile and then go after him with physical attacks and maybe some Katon jutsus. Unless, of course, the sand could still be moved once it was glass, in which case Gaara could simply topple it over and shatter it to use as many tiny blades… or simply drop it on Sasuke's head.

He decided he'd rather have a concussion or die from slashes than from crushing and began gathering up his supplies.

-----

Sesshomaru reclined in his chair up in the Kages' box and sighed. Until whatever happened that was going to happen, there really wasn't anything any of them could do- and he hated it. At least with Naraku, though it had been two years before they had been good enough to beat him, they had been able to try.

He looked at the other occupants of the box and sighed. Two of the Sannin were there, and possibly a third- the 'Kazekage' stunk of snake. Had he not thought of modifying his scent? There _were_, after all, those with enhanced senses, especially scent.

Then there was the Hokage. Two Jounin stood behind him, Kakashi and one he didn't know with scarring on one side of his nose; an official 'bodyguard'. The real thing hid in the shadows above and below the box.

The 'Kazekage' had his own bodyguards on either side of him. Sesshomaru duly noted that, though there were only two bodies, there were four individual scents- and if he concentrated, he could smell a fifth, much fainter one. As if whoever had produced it was hiding inside one of the others- one with a very similar scent.

The two Sannin were not in the best shape. One, Jiraiya, the Toad Master, was leering at Tsunade. He had apparently given into perversion. Tsunade was glaring at him and fiddling with a deck of cards she had- apparently she was a compulsive gambler and drinker, but the Hokage was not allowing any alcohol to be sold today. The last thing they needed was for Shinobi to be drunk when an invasion could happen... and probably would.

A moment after Sesshomaru observed this, Kakashi's head snapped to the North- the direction of Konoha's main gate, if he remembered correctly.

Sarutobi looked up with a questioning expression. "What is it?"

"She's here," Kakashi said, shifting excitedly, then jumping away over the top of the stadium.

Sesshomaru frowned. No matter _who_ was here, you did _not_ abandon the person you were guarding if there was probable danger.

-----

Kakashi burst into a cloud of smoke in midair, reappearing near the arena's entrance. He finished jumping from stairwell to stairwell, at last coming to rest on the tiled flooring. Over by the door, Rin was showing her passport to the guards there.

"Hey," he said quietly as she turned away from the guards and picked up her bag again.

She looked at him with tired brown eyes. He blinked. Had they been that empty when she left Konoha?

"Hey," she replied equally quietly. Her voice had changed as well, he realized. It was slightly lower, and it was hoarse as well, as if she barely talked anymore. Which, considering she had fled to a monastery in the mountains, probably wasn't that far from the truth.

Why hadn't he noticed these things when she'd first arrived...?

"What was so important for me to see that you had to drag me all the way out here, again?" she asked, breaking him out of his reverie.

He gave her the smile that turned his eye into an upside-down 'V'. "You've missed part of it, I'm afraid. But there's still time for you to see this one, and I'd hate to abandon Sasuke to ride his match out alone."

Rin raised an eyebrow as he started to lead her into the city. "His match? Who's Sasuke? What have I missed part of?"

"The Chuunin Exam finals are today," he replied happily, leading her through the maze of streets toward the arena. "I passed a team. Two of them made it into the finals."

"Kakashi, that was the whole point of your letter," she said irritatedly. "But you can't possibly have dragged me all the way out here just for that."

"All right, then, a quick summary," he said. "I got a team from this year's nine- Sasuke, the Uchiha heir, the Hyuuga heir- her name's Hinata- and the son of a northern lord. He's named Naruto."

Rin turned toward him in surprise and he shook his head sadly. "No, not Arashi-sensei's legacy. He was killed about six years ago, not long before the Uchiha massacre. Trampled by a mob on the anniversary of the Kyuubi's defeat..."

She sighed and looked down. "That still doesn't tell me much, you know."

"I entered them in the Chuunin exam," Kakashi replied. "Sasuke and Naruto made it to the finals, but Hinata got brutally beaten by her cousin in the preliminaries. I wanted you to come so you could see their matches, and also to see if you could help Hinata- I think her lungs might be damaged, but her family just doesn't care."

Rin sighed again. "Kakashi, this is Konohagakure no Sato. We have the best medic-nins in the world here. If someone already here couldn't find a way to help her-"

"But all the really good ones with Shinobi expertise are gone," Kakashi said earnestly. "Tsunade-sama left. You left. Hitohana is dead. Most of the really good ones kept getting called out on missions, and called out on missions, until they were too tired to think and they made a mistake. You know what a mistake means in ou- in this world."

Rin shook her head again. "Death. Of course. But Kakashi, I don't belong here anymore. It's not our world. It's yours."

"I'm not asking you to stay. I'm asking you to watch the matches with me and then take a look at my student," Kakashi said frankly. "It's not pulling teeth, Rin."

"Well, it feels like it."

He had no reply.

"So who is the northern lord, anyway?"

"You met him yesterday. His name is Sesshomaru."

-----

Sasuke stood panting in the center of the arena.

His every attempt to turn Gaara's sand to glass had been thwarted. Oh, he had no doubt that it would happen- once he actually hit the stuff with his Katon jutsus. But you couldn't melt something you couldn't hit, and all this fire was taking up his chakra.

Sasuke sighed and closed his eyes for a moment as Gaara had another bout of clutching his head and whispering to himself. It was so tempting to just give up now... to lie down and not get back up again. To sleep...

Then his eyes flew open as, in the back of his mind, he heard the voice again.

_'Live in an unsightly way... run away, and live. But come back when you have the same eyes as I do, and try to kill me.'_

He snarled quietly and gathered his chakra for one last blow. He would at least go down fighting, even if it cost him his life against this terrifying _suna-oni_.

Across from the Uchiha heir, Gaara waited, not sure who was in control anymore. Inside his mind, he and the Shukaku melded together, until one's bloodlust was the other's bloodlust, one's rage was the other's rage. When neither of them could tell what they were, human or demon, then neither could fully have control, neither could take it away from the other... unless the other was not there.

Sleeping.

The most tempting thing to do in the world.

The most dangerous thing to do in the world.

He hadn't slept for so long. Years. He didn't dare lose control. But he was tired.

So tired...

His limbs felt like lead. His chakra hadn't been at full strength in years. He had no idea how much of it he could actually take. If he took a soldier pill, he was afraid he would get addicted to them. The pick-me-up. The rush of energy. The feeling of running high and full of chakra, able to take on anything... He didn't dare touch caffeine either. Who knew how addictive that could be to him? He could bankrupt himself drinking coffee, an expensive thing in Wind Country, Kazekage father or not.

To live and feel. It was all he wanted now. To be able to feel. He had long ago accepted that the demon was bound too closely into his soul, that they would never be separated. In the long, dark hours of the night, when the temptation was most, he dared not train for fear of tiring himself out. He spent his nights contemplating and fighting back bloodlust and horrific urges.

Gaara was forced to look up as his sand moved automatically to block the shuriken and kunai that his opponent was throwing at him. Funny, he couldn't even remember his name anymore. There was something he was supposed to have, though, that he didn't... something to make him powerful and strong, to make Gaara feel alive when he killed him.

"Why don't you have it?" he snarled as the sand tensed around him to form an orb.

Sasuke shivered in apprehension as he heard Gaara's half-mad, dreadful voice, thick with bloodlust and rage, then steadied himself. This would be his best shot.

He made the seals, opened his mouth, and blew. Hard.

"Katon: Gokakyuu no Jutsu!"

Having put far more chakra into it than usual, and having struggled for control, Sasuke slumped over, putting his hands on his knees and breathing heavily. The extra energy had not gone into making it bigger, but making it hotter.

The fireball sped toward the mass of sand. Gaara had not bothered to form an eye outside it, so he could see nothing of what was happening. As it hit the front of the sphere, it spread out, flames licking around it. A disgusting melting smell permeated the air, making Sasuke gag and stagger, suddenly dizzy. As the flames cleared, they revealed an orb that was now part glass on the side facing him.

Sasuke groaned. He had no soldier pills this time, and doing that again would cost far too much chakra. He had decreased Gaara's sand, but he could do nothing else.

He had nowhere to go but down...

-----

As Rin and Kakashi entered the arena, Gai caught sight of them. "Oh, my eternal rival! Your youthful student is losing! Ah, how cruel, and against such an unyouthful opponent-"

Rin shivered. "Kakashi, who is he, and what on earth is he wearing?!?"

"That's Gai," he replied, resigned. "The self-proclaimed 'Prideful Green Beast' of Konoha. I am not at the right angle to see exactly what he is wearing, but I am willing to bet it is something bright green, made of spandex, and mentally scarring. He seems to have decided that I am his rival."

"Eternal rival!" the disturbing man exclaimed. "Come on, come on! You must see this..."

Tenten stuck her head over the side of the railing. "What my incredibly disturbing mentor means to say is that your prodigy, Hatake, is losing miserably."

Kakashi frowned and started to walk a bit faster.

"I'd run if I were you," she advised. "He looks like he's not going to last much longer against Gaara. And if Lee came out with a crushed arm and leg..."

As soon as she'd drawn her head back, he did. But he made sure she couldn't see. He still had his pride, after all.

He came out into a stairwell with a view of the arena and stopped. Rin came up beside him, then gasped at the scene below.

Sasuke was being held by Gaara, the sand keeping his hands away from each other and his fingers separated so that he could not use handseals. The Suna Jinchuuriki had the Uchiha heir in a tight grip.

Kakashi had seen this before.

"Stop the match!" he yelled down to the proctor.

The man cleared his throat. "The match is over! The winner is Sabaku no Gaara!"

There was no applause. Everyone was too focused on what was happening down below.

The Kazekage took the opportunity to nod to one of the people behind him.

Gaara raised his hands to crush Sasuke.

And feathers began to fall from the sky...

-----

A/N: I know I said I have personal issues. But I think that maybe typing on this will keep my mind off of things, so I'm continuing this sooner than I thought I would.

That aside, I'm sorry this is so short. But I thought it was a good place to stop... and FINALLY, with the next chapter, I can start with the actual plot. Mmmmm, plot...

FullMetalRuromaru

(7/7/07- The part where I accidentally made Rin enter Konoha again has been cut out... I didn't realize I'd done it twice. -.-;)


	8. Invasion

Uzumaki-Taisho

Chapter Eight

By FullMetalRuromaru

Disclaimer: I own neither Inuyasha nor Naruto.

-----

_And feathers began to fall from the sky..._

-----

Sesshomaru gave a slow, silent growl, lip curling back over his teeth and displaying a lovely view of his long, slender fangs. Tsunade cursed and stood. Jiraiya fell out of his chair.

The Hokage and the Kazekage turned slowly to look at each other.

Then the Kazekage's bodyguards jumped forward, and an explosion went off.

-----

Naruto was leaning against the wall in the fighters' box when the genjutsu began. He quickly dispelled the illusion, as did everybody else in the box- even Shikamaru, though he pretended to keel over asleep.

This Naruto snarled at. Shikamaru may have been his comrade, and- perhaps- a friend, but you _did not _pretend to be asleep in the middle of an invasion that could destroy your entire village and kill people you knew and liked.

He landed a sharp kick to the Nara's ribs, sending him skidding along the ground for a few feet.

"Get up!"

Shikamaru obeyed hastily.

Naruto cut a terrifying figure in the middle of the beginning invasion, with people collapsing left and right and dust and smoke wreathing the air. His clothing was, amazingly, still immaculate, as was his face; but his upper lip was pulled back in a snarl, exposing a set of very sharp teeth. His eyes were now mostly red, with some yellow, and very little blue; and his whisker marks were a lot darker, and getting more so by the minute. His head was tilted slightly back, hair still fluttering in the winds from the explosion, his ears were pricked forward, and his claws had grown a half-inch more and curved, coming to wicked points, slashing the air even in their immobile state.

The only ones still in the box besides him were Shino and Shikamaru. Sasuke was still down in the arena, though they couldn't see him through the haze; so was Gaara. Temari and Kankuro had vanished off to parts unknown after their forfeiting. They could not see anyone besides those in the stands directly to either side of the fighters' box; those were all civilians, and not a single one was awake.

"Get up," Naruto snarled again to Shikamaru. The shadow user hastily obeyed.

Shino had walked over to the side of the box as his insects relayed information back to him at a remarkable rate. "The brush in the arena is burning. The other new Gennin are all unconscious save for Sasuke-san and Hinata-san. Taisho-sama"- Naruto blinked, then realized that this must be Sesshomaru- "has left the Kage box, as have the others sitting there. The Kazekage appears to be someone else in disguise- not someone my insects have ever seen, nor felt even a residual trail of their chakra. His bodyguards were chopped in half. It appears that they were actually four people in hiding, holding a combined Henge; none are injured. Hokage-sama is on top of the stadium roof with the false Kazekage. His bodyguards have erected a large barrier around them. My insects cannot fly through; they burn if they touch it. They cannot tell me where Taisho-sama is at this moment, but Jiraiya-sama and Tsunade-sama are just outside the barrier. One of the Sand Jounin seems to be directing things; he is down in the arena. Maito-san is there, fighting him and- one of our own ANBU. A short one, normal black cloak. My insects have seen this mask before. It is not the same man. Most likely he was killed and his uniform stolen to provide a disguise. Tenten-san is heading to the infirmary. The Shinobi that were in the arena are spread out, fighting Sound-nin. They include some of the Gennin parents and siblings, but they are all at least Chuunin, and go up through Jounin. There are several ANBU by the barrier. Hatake-san and a lady who smells of medicine are in a balcony overlooking the arena. They are moving downward towards it. That is the state of things at this point."

Shino and Shikamaru were both looking at him expectantly. Naruto looked right back. "What is it?"

Shikamaru answered. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"We would like orders," Shino clarified.

Naruto gave them stares of disbelief. "I'm only a foreign Gennin! Ask someone else!"

"There is nobody else we can ask," Shino said in a monotone. Naruto glared. Just what he needed...

-----

Hinata was standing over Kiba's unconscious body, ready to defend him. She wasn't exactly close to him, but he was still a Konoha shinobi. It was her duty to help her comrade.

She caught something as she activated her Byakugan and spun around, then froze abruptly in horror. Instead of Shinobi, she was facing... monsters.

'Abominations' might have been a better word. They were insects, mainly, with a few dogs and rats thrown in; but enlarged far beyond natural means, and twisted beyond belief. They gave off a foul odor, and projected bloodlust. They looked like something out of the Forest of Death, only a thousand times worse. And hundreds of them were streaming into the arena- many heading toward her.

Understandably, she froze.

She had seen these before, when they were traveling to Inuyama, but only at a distance. Nevertheless, they had given her terrible nightmares. They were youkai, Shippo had told her- demons of the legend world. Perhaps not so much a legend, though- the lands around Inuyama were full of them, as were other, farther places. Apparently in the Elemental countries, there were enough humans that the weaker youkai and then even the medium and then some of the stronger ones had been driven away or killed. Only a few were left- the Bijou, used in stories to frighten children and even a few who were not, but sealed away whenever they emerged. The Kyuubi was one of those. Then, he had said, were those who could assume human form- or something close to it. They never seemed fully normal, of course- which was why one often found them in Shinobi villages, or those of their descent, part human and part demon. They generally fit in better there, among the eccentrics and killers of the world.

Hinata had formulated her own theories about that. Perhaps they did not only roam the lands around Inuyama, but had colonized it as well? There was the matter of Shippo's fox tail, and Sesshomaru had one from a dog. Both of them had pointed ears, as well- and Naruto not only had animal ears, but he had multiple tails. And then there were the incredibly large tunnels inside the mountain city. Larger demons _would_ need a way to get around without crushing everything...

The Hyuuga heiress started to realize that they were almost on her. She readied her Jyuuken and cut off one of the front runners, but bent over double, gasping and wheezing and coughing up blood.

'What a time...'

She tried to straighten up, but she could smell the stench, feel the air blowing off of them as what might have been a praying mantis took a swipe. There was no more time. She would be dead, and so would Kiba...

And then a much stronger wind circled her, and the stench of dirty, acid-like blood filled the air.

Sesshomaru picked Kiba's body up, threw him over his shoulder, then tucked Hinata under one arm and jumped into the air again. Behind him he left at least ninety weak demons, scattered in pieces, their blood burning and hissing on the stone.

Touching down on the ground, Sesshomaru turned rapidly and sped to where the stairs led out into the arena. Rin and Kakashi were just reaching the doorway.

Sesshomaru left Kiba on the ground and gently handed Hinata to Rin. "Her lungs were damaged in a preliminary round. Please try and fix them. If you'll excuse me, I'll be right back."

He jumped away again, moving faster than the eye could see. He caught a brief glimpse of Kakashi starting to wake Kiba and Rin healing Hinata, then he was on top of the roof again, but this time near the barrier.

One of the ANBU had evidently tried to get in; their burning body was lying on the tiled roof. The other members of the squad were crouched at the side of the barrier; Jiraiya and Tsunade were there as well, looking in at Sarutobi- who was opening up a fight with Orochimaru. The snake Sannin was summoning multiple coffins. As he watched, the Hokage repulsed the third one but failed to stop the other two.

Sesshomaru, drawing the Tensaiga, walked up to the barrier. Tsunade called out to him. "It'll burn you if you touch it, genius."

He looked back coldly. "That is why I do not intend to touch it."

He drew his hand back and threw the sword through the barrier.

It made a harsh sizzling noise as it went through, but the barrier could not keep out a sword much stronger than it, and the flames did not affect it. Its aura kept them off of itself.

Orochimaru and the Sandaime paused for a moment to look at the sword. Orochimaru was frowning as he glanced from the sword to Sesshomaru, but Sarutobi was by the Tensaiga in mere seconds.

"Will it accept me?" he asked, glancing at the taiyoukai.

"If you ask it nicely," Sesshomaru replied, turning to go. "You're only human, after all."

"But you don't need this?"

"There is nobody here with the strength to make me need that."

He said it flatly but without pretense, the statement coming not from arrogance but from something that he knew as a fact. Then he turned and jumped gracefully off the roof. He had something to retrieve from the house they were staying in that he thought would benefit Hinata.

That Jyuuken strike was not made of chakra, after all... for _human_ chakra was blue, and that had been a pale ivory color.

-----

Naruto, Shino, and Shikamaru made their way delicately down the stairs. Every so often Shino would relate another piece of new information- Sakura had woken herself up, for example. They were joined by the pink-haired gennin on the way down, and at the foot of the stairs, they met Kakashi and Rin, along with the still-snoring Kiba and the now fully healed Hinata.

"Orders, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked. As he did so, Sakura stomped past him and kicked her sleeping teammate awake.

"Just kill any Sand or Sound-nin you can," he drawled. "Naruto, I'd suggest going after Gaara. Shino, Shikamaru, Kiba- you three go with him and take on Gaara's siblings. Fight to kill."

Kiba swallowed nervously. Shikamaru grunted. Shino had no reaction. Out of the three, it looked as if he was the only one to have killed someone.

"Consider yourself Chuunin, Naruto," Kakashi continued. "You are the leader of this operation. Kill the Sand Siblings and make sure Gaara's demon causes no damage to the village."

Naruto nodded, then turned abruptly. "Come on."

The four-man team jumped away, Akamaru following them closely. Down the stands and across the arena, past where Sasuke was hiding, and out of the hole in the wall that the sand siblings had left through. Behind them was chaos, and more lay ahead.

-----

Sesshomaru raced from his home, the plain weapon in his hand wrapped in a clean white cloth and another long, thin package slung over one arm with a cord. It was only a hint, but it was possible Hinata could use these. And if she could, it would be a very powerful weapon indeed- especially with all the ravenous demons that seemed to want to eat the villagers.

Speaking of which...

Sesshomaru took a quick pause to stop and kill a few demons on his way back to the arena.

-----  
Rin had barely finished healing Hinata when Sesshomaru touched down again. Sakura was still there, as was Kakashi, but nobody else was.

"This is the best I can do on such short notice," she told the Taiyoukai as he settled his feet on the ground. "She'll need more healing later, but it will do for now. Just be careful and don't get in any close fights."

"This weapon cannot be used as well in a close fight," Sesshomaru told them both, handing over the first package, then taking the cord off of his hand and giving it to Hinata. "It is just as well."

Hinata unwrapped it and stared at it. Rin looked over her shoulder.

"A bow?" the Hyuuga heiress said uncertainly.

"That's nothing special," Rin said critically.

Sesshomaru gave her a slightly amused look and leaned in towards Hinata. "In the right hands, a bow is the most deadly of weapons to those invading... not the shinobi, but the youkai."

She stared up at him. How did a ninja still have such trusting eyes? It mystified him.

"Look inside yourself," Sesshomaru commanded. "Under your chakra."

Hinata gave an internal sigh and closed her eyes. This really did sound like a cheesy pitch.

She delved deeper and deeper inside herself. The sound of the chaos outside quieted. She reached her pool of blue chakra and continued on. All too soon, she reached the bottom. Was that really all she had? She would have to work on that. It could be her death one day.

She landed on the bottom. A minute later, a strong ripple ran through the floor, throwing her off her feet.

She stared at the ground in dismay. How long had that been happening? It was almost certainly messing with her chakra control!

Sesshomaru's voice cut in from outside. "There is something under there that wants to get out. It wants you to use it. Pull it out."

Easy for him to say, she thought. She knelt down and placed her hands against the floor.

It felt alive. Warm. It pulsed in time with her heartbeat.

Come out? she thought loudly. Please?

Ivory light erupted around her. She got the definite impression of 'why didn't you ask sooner?' before it carried her farther and farther up, back into the real world.

-----

Rin was staring at Hinata when she opened her eyes. "Wha...?" she started to ask as she looked down at herself, then stopped.

The ivory energy had enveloped her entire body, gently ruffling her clothing and giving her a warm, peaceful feeling.

Sesshomaru knelt and bowed his head to her.

"Hail, new priestess, commander of that which is sacred."

Rin stared at him, clearly a very powerful being, bowing his head to a thirteen-year-old, albeit one who was wrapped in an energy more powerful than anything she'd ever felt before.

Then Sesshomaru stood, letting his control fade slightly, and she took it back as she was forced to her knees by the sheer amount of power in the air.

_That_ power she truly believed could be matched by no other. It was not only her mind and senses telling her this; but something in her soul and in her subconscious told her that she knew this from something long past, something past her mind's view but something that her soul remembered quite clearly.

It was an almost childlike belief, and there in the arena, she remembered one fragment and one fragment only- the single pale arm encircling her to keep her from harm.

In that moment, down on her knees and looking up at this magnificent and powerful being, Rin felt like a child again, looking up at the Hokage as he passed her. But it wasn't the Hokage, but someone far stronger. Someone who would not fail. Someone for whom failing was not even a possibility. Not because it was necessary, but because that someone was simply incapable of losing.

And she felt like she had a father again.

-----

Sesshomaru looked down at Rin as the woman's eyes closed, first partly, then all the way, and she slowly crumpled onto her side.

Hinata was still staring stiffly ahead. He coughed sharply and she broke out of it.

"You can concentrate the energy best through a bow. Stand on top of the arena and shoot down all the youkai invading. Only bother with the shinobi if they get too close. I will leave these two"- he indicated Kakashi and Rin-"with you. They will help to protect you, but you should wake her up first. I must be off. There is much to fight today."

"What is this power?" Hinata asked, gazing down at the bow held in her hands. The other, unopened package lay at her feet; she bent down and, picking it up, tugged open the top. Inside were a number of arrows.

"There is no time to explain now," the Taiyoukai snapped. "Use it, and I will tell you when there _is_ enough time."

He picked Rin up, gently for one so cold, and jumped up to the top of the stadium. Kakashi and Hinata followed him as he set her down.

Sesshomaru nodded to them. "She will awaken soon. Kakashi, defend her and Hinata. Hinata... remove the demons."

He received a short nod from one and a tentative nod from the other and jumped away again.

-----

Naruto, Shikamaru, Shino, Kiba, and Akamaru sped through the forest, following the trail of the sand siblings. Ahead they could feel Gaara's menacing chakra, eclipsing his siblings'; behind they could hear the screams, from civilians and shinobi alike, and also eerie howls. Naruto knew these to be from youkai. The others did not and were therefore thoroughly scared- except for perhaps Shino. It was, as always, impossible to tell with him.

The four- five, counting the dog- increased speed on a mutual instinct. They came out on a clearing where the three siblings stood on the ground, the two older ones supporting their younger brother between them.

Kankuro looked back in shock, then narrowed his eyes. "Temari. I'll hold them off. Get Gaara to safety back in the village. It's the only place you'll be safe."

He and his sister exchanged one last look, knowing it might be the last they ever took. Then Temari set off again with Gaara, and Kankuro turned to face the team of four as Karasu slunk over his shoulders.

"Well? Come on."

Shikamaru looked at Naruto. "Well?"

Naruto sighed. "Shino. Keep him here. Kill him if you have to, but keep in mind that he'd be a powerful political prisoner. Also keep in mind we'd rather have you alive than him."

The now-reduced team jumped away again, leaving Shino to face the puppet master.

-----

A/N: I'll end it there, shall I? It seems to me like I'm now updating faster but with shorter chapters... ah, well. There were always going to be a lot of chapters in this fanfiction, so it's better I'll probably be updating faster now...

I know the Japanese is incorrect. IF ANYONE CAN SPEAK JAPANESE, PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO SAY THAT IN THE MOST FORMAL WAY POSSIBLE!!! I spent an hour trying to translate it and I couldn't get it right... cries comically I'll be taking it next year, but I'm not yet... so for now, my Japanese is terrible.

And in this chapter, Hinata-chan FINALLY gets a cool power! Now we just have Sasuke left. Poor, poor Sasuke, he must feel so neglected; no Sharingan and no awesome powers... but don't worry! evil laugh I'll be remedying both of those problems soon...


	9. Author's Note

Augh. I think it's about time I realize that I'm never going to finish this story. I've moved on from Naruto to Bleach and then to Mai HiME. I can't get any more inspiration for this story- once I completely planned it out, I had to think up a sequel to keep myself interested, and I know I'll never write it all. It's too long and I just don't have the attention span, not to mention that I find it insanely hard to write heterosexual romance. A lot of people seem to like this story, though, so you all get to tell me what I should do with it.

Probably what will happen is that I will post what I've written of chapter nine on as part of another chapter. I will also post what would have happened, in this story and the sequel, and maybe some of the dialogue that would have gone in each part.

Another thing I could do is, if someone PMs me with the desire to continue my story, send them this information. If they wanted, they could take it on another tangent, but if they did, I would like them to post my information along with their story- perhaps at the end. They would need to PM me by November 15.

I apologize for this, but I think I needed to realize that, when I couldn't write the romance that is needed for the later chapters, haven't updated since July, and have no desire to continue the story, it was time to end it.

I will tell you what I will do on November 15. Goodbye until then. Sorry again about making you all wait so long for editing and then abandoning the story.


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